All employees love holidays and eagerly look forward to celebrating them. But what about those who work in Information Technology? Cyber thugs unite! Here are the IT holidays you will want to mark on your calendars now:
Launch Date – Oh the sounds of joy when a new product is finally launched to the world! Launch dates are anticipated for months after long days of coding crunches. Make sure you have some fun activities planned for the launch date of your project so you can celebrate your achievements.
End of Support Date – Yes, you can finally stop dreading those support calls and start planning a vacation on a tropical island somewhere (preferably without Internet service). This is the date when support ends and patches have things covered to keep the hackers out.
Zero Day – When hackers are the busiest is when a new vulnerability is discovered in a launched or upgraded software product. Until the security patch is developed, the software remains open to attack, in some cases up to three years. Be sure to mark your calendar to watch out during this time.
Patch Tuesday – Once a patch is applied to the software (on a Tuesday), the very next day ‘Ida Wednesday’ as it’s referred to, hackers are already trying to get back in.
Quarterly Earnings Day – It’s traditional for a company to be attacked by scammers and hackers the day that the company announces its quarterly earnings. This is an effort to gain insider trading information to make a few criminals rich on the stock market.
Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales days – Prime times for retail and financial companies to get attacked by hackers when consumer information and credit card use is bogging down servers. Be ready and be prepared to deal with regular system attacks during this time.
Tax Season – From January to April, company IT teams should be on alert as information is at risk. Scammers posing as financial institutions, tax firms, and even the IRS will do whatever it takes to steal employee information for illegal purposes. Lock things down and have a process in place to protect information.
