Ahead of the Labor Day Holiday, the FBI and CISA Warn of Ransomware Risk Over Weekends and Holidays

Ahead of the Labour Day holiday coming about this weekend, CISA and the FBI have released joint advisory warning organizations of increased ransomware attack risk on weekends and holidays. 

Over the past few months, the government agencies have noticed a relative increase in ‘highly destructive’ ransomware attacks being launched by attackers on long weekends and holidays. Reportedly, these time frames – holidays, especially long weekends – are viewed as attractive time slots by cybercriminals to deploy ransomware due to a lower level of defense during weekends which maximizes the impact of infiltration. The physical absence of the personnel plays a significant role when the offices are normally closed. 

The FBI and CISA noted that the recent cyberattacks that crippled high-profile US entities were all scheduled by hackers over weekends. The cited case studies include recent attacks against JBS, Kaseya, and Colonial Pipeline. 

In May 2021, the DarkSide ransomware operators launched the Colonial Pipeline attack, around Mother’s Day weekend. The data was stolen on May 06, 2021, and the malware attack occurred on May 07, 2021. 

In May 2021, the world’s largest meat processing organization, JBS, experienced a cyberattack by the REvil ransomware group that disabled its beef and pork slaughterhouses. This attack took place on May 30, 2021 – leading into the Memorial Day public holiday. 

In July 2021 –  building on the weekend attack trend – Kaseya, a leading software provided to over 40,000 organizations, suffe

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