UK firms urged to beware of upcoming Black Friday US hackerfest
Global Secure Systems has warned UK companies to review their IT security procedures in the light of the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend in the US.
Thanksgiving, a traditional North American holiday to give thanks at the end of the harvest season, is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the US, and that is Thursday of this week,” said David Hobson, GSS managing director.
“The bad news is that US hackerdom usually takes advantage of the long holiday weekend to generate all sorts of malware and hacker attacks on Internet-connected computer systems worldwide,” he added. Because of the upcoming weekend-long hackerfest, which experts now call Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Hobson recommends that UK organisations review their IT security arrangements and make sure all their security patches are up to date.
“They should also prepare for the worst and review their ongoing business continuity arrangements in the event of an IT disaster striking,” he said. “Thanksgiving in the US is the time when retailers give out freebies to their customers. Companies in the UK should watch out for hacker freebies that take the shape of malware-infected email and other digital mayhem. This is always a bad time of the year for malware,” he added.
