Nu är det jul igen, and the hacking never stops
Dec 7th, 2022 by Jesper Kråkhede
Every Swede knows the old Christmas song ‘Nu är det jul igen’, where Christmas lasts all the way to Easter. Then someone corrects it: no, Easter comes before that. I have a security version.
Nu är det jul igen, och nu är det hack igen,
och hackandet varar väl till påska.
Det var inte sant, och det var inte sant,
för hackandet varar hela året.
For the non-Swedes: Now it is Christmas again and now it is hacking again, and the hacking lasts until Easter. That wasn´t true, because the hacking lasts all year.
And that is the sad truth. There is no season for attacks. Christmas, Easter, midsummer, vacation weeks, Friday evenings, the night before a big product launch. Attackers just pick the moment when we are least prepared, and they are always somewhere in the world working while we are asleep.
So my Christmas advice is the same as every year. Patch what is exposed before you leave. Check that the backups ran and one copy is out of reach. Make sure someone can see the alerts and has the right to act. And with the Defender stack, turn on the automatic responses so the machine can isolate an infected device even if the on-call person is busy with the Christmas ham.
Then dance around the tree. Just keep your phone in your pocket.