0
0
The Most Wonderful (and Risky) Time of the Year
For most retailers, the holiday period represents the peak of the business calendar – a time when transactions soar, new promotions launch daily, and digital infrastructure runs hot.
Unfortunately, threat actors also know this and as retail teams focus on customer experience and logistics, adversaries see an opportunity to exploit stretched resources, fatigued defenders, and high transaction volumes.
As this is my first year working as an in-house analyst in retail, the pressure rises as we batten down the hatches to prepare for what could be.
Every year, retail organisations see a (predictable) rise in fraud, phishing, credential theft, and infrastructure abuse across the festive season. Yet, the methods evolve faster than many organisations can adapt.
So if you’re like me, and a “newbie to retail” going into the golden season of Christmas, here are my thoughts on the type of trends to track going into this year’s Christmas season…
🎯 Top Threat Trends for Holiday 2025
1. Gift Card and Loyalty Point Abuse
Attackers continue to automate gift card enumeration and resale, using stolen credentials or brute-forced balances. Many organisations in the retail space are also seeing growth in AI-driven chatbots that mimic customer service reps to trick shoppers into “verifying” card numbers. Recently a cloud-based gift card fraud was uncovered
2. Fake Stores and Brand Impersonation
Typosquatted domains, rogue mobile apps, and social media “giveaway” scams surge each November. Many leverage stolen branding assets or cloned checkout pages to harvest payment info.
CTI tip: Monitor newly registered domains containing your brand plus common holiday terms (“sale”, “discount”, “gifts”).
3. Supply Chain Exploitation
Shipping and logistics providers are prime targets. Compromising one supplier can yield customer data or delivery disruptions across multiple retailers.
We’re tracking increased phishing activity mimicking courier notifications, as well as malware-laced “tracking portals.”
4. Credential Stuffing & Account Takeovers
With millions of customers logging in for deals, credential reuse remains a goldmine for attackers. Expect new credential dumps and bot activity as adversaries leverage “as-a-service” credential stuffing kits.
5. Fraud-as-a-Service Expansion
Marketplaces for synthetic identities, carding, and refund fraud are thriving — many offering pre-packaged holiday “campaign kits.” CTI teams should monitor dark web chatter for sector-specific targeting.
🧠 Turning Threat Intelligence into Holiday Readiness
During the rush, intelligence must translate directly into operational value. Some best practices:
- Brief early, update often: Share succinct weekly intel summaries with SOC, fraud, and e-commerce teams.
- Align on detection priorities: Use MITRE ATT&CK mapping to focus hunts on behaviors most relevant to retail systems (credential access, exfiltration via APIs, etc.).
- Collaborate cross-functionally: CTI should coordinate with fraud analysts, brand protection, and marketing for unified situational awareness.
- Pre-stage takedown workflows: Pre-approved processes for removing malicious domains and fake profiles can save precious hours.
The goal isn’t just knowing what’s coming — it’s acting faster than adversaries can exploit the window.
🤝 How Retail CTI Teams Can Give Back This Holiday Season
Trust groups thrive on reciprocity. While everyone’s focused on protecting their own perimeter, it’s also a time for the retail CTI community to strengthen collective defenses.
Here are a few meaningful ways to “give back”:
- Share Early Indicators and TTPs
Post anonymized findings about new phishing kits, spoofed domains, or fraud campaigns to your sector ISAC/ISAO. Even one shared IOC can prevent downstream compromise. - Publish Sanitized Threat Summaries
Not everything needs to be confidential. High-level overviews of active scams or attacker trends help raise awareness without exposing sensitive telemetry. - Offer Detection Engineering Support
Collaborate with peer organisations to refine YARA rules, SIEM queries, or signatures related to shared threats. - Participate in Joint Incident Reviews
After the rush, contribute to after-action reviews or community debriefs. Shared lessons from seasonal campaigns can shape next year’s defences. - Encourage a Culture of Empathy and Trust
Remember: behind every “intel report” is a person trying to protect customers. Take time to acknowledge your peers’ efforts and foster open, respectful dialogue.
In the spirit of the season, the best gift we can give each other is timely, relevant, and actionable intelligence.
🎁 Closing Thoughts
The retail threat landscape may feel familiar, but each year brings new adversary tactics and technological twists. CTI teams are uniquely positioned to spot these shifts early, warn others, and translate insights into protection for millions of customers.
This Christmas, let’s make sure that while shoppers hunt for bargains — we’re hunting for threats, together.
