5-Step Pre-Holiday Security Checklist (Free Download)

Over the last holiday season, ransomware accounted for 26% of reported incidents, fake merchant websites surged 284%, credential-stuffing attacks rose sharply, and overall cyber-attacks increased ~ 30% compared to non-holiday months.

Attackers are counting on reduced staffing, slower response cycles, and overlooked vulnerabilities.

To help you cut through that noise and lock down your perimeter before the holiday freeze, here's a practical 5-step pre-holiday offensive security checklist.

1. Audit Your High-Risk Threats

• Are actively exploited vulnerabilities prioritized, even if CVSS is low, based on business impact?
• Have critical findings been checked against CISA KEV and active exploit intel?
• Are public-facing assets patched and critical vulnerabilities mitigated?
• Have recent pentest findings been reviewed and remediated?

2. Sanity-Check Your Crown Jewels

• Are your login portals, customer-facing APIs, and payment flows functioning securely as expected?
• Do you have any expired or misconfigured SSL certificates?
• Are auto-updates enabled for critical applications and SaaS environments?
• Have you checked for any newly exposed internet-facing assets, APIs, ports, or services?
• Are WAF/API protections and rate-limits properly applied?
• Are there any DNS misconfigurations or abandoned subdomains tied to critical services?
• Are there any exposed test/dev environments connected to production data?
  
  

• 3. Confirm Monitoring & Alert Coverage

• Are alert deduplication and false-positive filters working?
• Are escalation paths and reduced staffing accounted for?
• Are common response workflows automated (IP block, user disable, host isolation)?
• Are SIEM, EDR, and cloud alerts active, tested, and tuned for holiday mode?
• Do you have an incident response playbook or SOP in place and escalation paths updated?
  
  

• 4. Protect Access & Endpoints

• Are MFA and SSO enforced everywhere critical?
• Have dormant, unused, temp, or contractor admin accounts been removed?
• Are long-lived tokens, API keys, and CI/CD credentials rotated?
• Are endpoint hardening baselines (OS, browser, agent configs) consistent across Mac/Linux/Windows?
• Any unmanaged or rogue devices recently observed?
• Are EDR agents active everywhere (no uninstall/tamper attempts)?
  
  

• 5. Ensure High-Speed Remediation Before Freeze

• Is security fully embedded in your DevOps pipeline?
• Do tickets contain reproducible PoCs your engineering team can act on?
• Are all critical issues assigned clear engineering owners?
• Are fixes integrated into your internal tracker for fast execution pre-freeze?
• Have you performed a quick tabletop exercise to validate your holiday incident workflow (Prep → Identify → Contain → Eradicate → Remediate → Learn)?
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• Also check

• Are freeze windows clearly defined and communicated?
• Are backups recent, verified? Is there one immutable or offline backup?
• Have your critical vendors confirmed coverage and support during the holiday period?
• Are any high-risk deployments requiring approval identified and signed off before holidays?

The Shift to "Preemptive" Defense

The industry is moving away from purely reactive measures to identify, validate, and reduce exposure risk before exploitation ever occurs. Gartner recently recognized Siemba as a Sample Vendor for Preemptive Exposure Management (PEM) in their Emerging Tech Impact Radar.

Secure Your Stack for 2026