Why Your Summer Holiday Could Be a Gift to Cyber Criminals

Why Your Summer Holiday Could Be a Gift to Cyber Criminals: And what smart business owners are doing to protect their people and their data while offline

The Problem: Overexposure in the Summer

As the holiday season kicks in, it’s become almost instinctive to post our travel plans, beach photos, and out-of-office status across social media.

But for cybercriminals and opportunists, this behaviour is more than just digital noise — it’s valuable intelligence.

When business owners or key staff publicly share that they’re away, it creates a perfect window for:

• Targeted phishing attacks

• Business email compromise (BEC)

• Spoofed client communications

• Home or office burglaries linked to social intel

Real-World Impact

We’ve seen this time and time again:

An MD heads off for two weeks. Their social feed is full of cocktails and sunsets. Meanwhile, a fraudster uses publicly available data to:

• Clone their LinkedIn or email signature

• Send fake bank detail changes to clients

• Or even request internal transfers from junior finance staff “on their behalf”

And because the real MD is unreachable (or truly offline), the fraud goes unnoticed — sometimes for days.

The result?

Tens of thousands lost.

Reputational damage.

And all because of an innocent holiday post.

What Businesses Should Be Doing

This isn’t about fear — it’s about forward planning and awareness.

Here’s what we recommend all businesses do ahead of summer breaks:

Set Holiday Comms Protocols

Make it clear how staff should communicate during absences. No unexpected financial requests, no new payment details over email, and nothing without verbal confirmation.

Audit Social Media Settings

Encourage all team members — especially senior leaders — to lock down their privacy settings and think twice before sharing real-time updates.

Strengthen Email Security

If your leadership team doesn’t have MFA enabled and business-grade email protection (think impersonation detection and phishing filtering), it’s not a question of if — but when you’ll be hit.

Review Out-of-Office Language

Avoid “I’m away until X date” in automated replies. Keep it vague. Criminals often scrape out-of-office messages for timing and role-based targeting.

Train Teams on Holiday-Time Scams

Most finance and operations staff aren’t trained in spotting scams that only appear when key people are away. A 30-minute refresher before summer can save a lot of pain.

How Munio Can Help when on your summer holiday

At Munio, we work with growing businesses to build resilient cybersecurity postures that adapt to seasonal risks — not just technical ones, but human vulnerabilities too.

With tools like:

• Email impersonation protection

• Executive-grade account monitoring

• Phishing simulations and training

• Our fully managed 24/7 SOC service

• The Munio ONE cybersecurity framework

…we help you stay secure even when you’re switching off.

Taking a break is essential. But switching off should never mean leaving your business exposed.

Before you head off for the summer, take 15 minutes to review your cyber posture — and make sure you’re not broadcasting more than you think.