A new study from tech company Cybereason highlights that the majority of companies reduce cybersecurity staff over the holidays.
The survey of 1,203 cybersecurity professionals, across 8 countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), found that 44 percent of companies reduce security staffing on holidays and weekends by as much as 70 percent from weekday levels. Shockingly, 20 percent of companies cut security staffing by 90 percent from weekday levels. Conversely, only 7 percent of companies are at least 80 percent staffed on holidays and weekends.
The report also observes a disconnect between the increased risk organizations face from ransomware attacks that occur on holidays and weekends and their readiness to handle them, as year-over-year, ransomware attacks during these times take longer to assess and resolve.
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On the other hand, holiday and weekend ransomware attacks result in greater revenue losses than ransomware attacks on weekdays. One-third of respondents said their organization lost more money from a holiday/weekend ransomware attack, up from 13 percent of respondents in the 2021 study. In the education and transportation industries, the number of respondents reporting higher revenue losses jumped to 43 percent and 48 percent, respectively.
