Holiday Cybersecurity Threats: Identity Is the Real Target, Not Infrastructure

This holiday season, the most dangerous threat to enterprises isn’t a zero-day or a new ransomware strain, it’s the industrialization of identity-layer intrusion.

Coordinated cybercrime groups like Scattered Spider and LAPSUS$ are using SIM swaps, MFA fatigue, and SaaS admin abuse to enter networks without ever deploying malware. They are impersonating real users, operating inside trusted sessions, and bypassing traditional security defenses at scale.

This shift matters because most enterprise defenses are still built around endpoints, firewalls, and intrusion signatures. Attackers know it, and they are choosing the path with the least resistance. They are using identity abuse, social engineering, and operational psychology to quietly take control of cloud apps, help desk processes, and administrative pathways.

Cyber Cartels Have Industrialized Identity Intrusion

Over the past year, groups like Scattered Spider, LAPSUS$, and ShinyHunters have formed what is effectively a cybercrime cartel. This is not loose cooperation. It is organized collaboration with shared access pipelines, shared social engineering scripts, and a clear division of labor.

The goal is simple: compromise identity controls, escalate privileges inside SaaS environments, and coerce victims into payment. The intrusion chain has evolved into a repeatable, industrial process.

Initial Access

• SIM-swapping and impersonation of wireless carriers
• Help desk manipulation for MFA resets
• Theft and replay of browser session tokens
• Targeted vishing using employee behavioral data
• High-intensity MFA fatigue attacks to force approvals

Privilege and Control

• Privilege escalation across Okta, Entra, and Google Workspace
• OAuth token abuse and conditional access bypass
• Fake mobile device management enrollment to gain device trust
• Persistence using refresh tokens and service principals
• Abuse of legitimate remote support tools such as ScreenConnect and AnyDesk

Pressure and Monetization

• Extortion hubs that rotate across Telegram channels
• Executive email impersonation during negotiations
• Sequenced data leaks to increase leverage
• Ransomware as a secondary enforcement tactic

This is not ransomware delivery. It is identity takeover, SaaS platform control, and engineered psychological pressure against human operators.

Why Identity-Based Cyberattacks Increase During the Holiday Season

Attackers have learned that holiday schedules create structural weaknesses. They do not need to build better malware. They only need to strike when defenders are short-staffed and users are distracted.

Holiday periods create structural exposure:

• Travel logins and device changes mask attacker geo-signals
• Faster MFA approvals from distracted users
• Understaffed SOCs and IAM teams reduce anomaly response speed
• Help desk fatigue lowers identity verification rigor
• Delayed response paths when executives are offline
• More one-time access exemptions granted for remote work

The weakest control in the enterprise is not the firewall. It is a tired human. Criminal groups have aligned their playbook around this reality. Their advantage is timing.

Identity-Based Attacks Bypass Traditional Cyber Defenses

Many organizations still rely on endpoint detection, malware signatures, and firewall posture as their primary defense strategy. Identity intrusions bypass all three. Attackers enter through authenticated access pathways, impersonate employees, and operate with legitimate tokens.

The modern perimeter consists of:

• Authentication flows
• Token integrity
• SaaS administrative settings
• Help desk processes
• Human decision speed

Criminals are not hacking code. They are hacking business process. They are not exploiting software vulnerabilities. They are exploiting trust.

The Real Gap Isn’t Tools. It’s Trusted Visibility.

UncommonX exists to help organizations achieve clarity and cyber resilience, not just accumulate more tools. The industry has invested heavily in cybersecurity technology, yet many leaders still cannot answer a basic question: are we safer today than we were last quarter?

Crain’s Chicago Business recently named UncommonX one of Chicago’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025. In the article, we shared a sentiment we hear from many executives:

“We have spent millions on cybersecurity, but we still cannot quantify whether we are safer.”

This is the problem we were founded to solve. Organizations need full visibility, measurable outcomes, and a clear understanding of how identity, access, and assets interact across on-prem, cloud, OT, and IoT environments.

Our platform fingerprints every device and identity, inventories the data they access, and uses algorithms to assess and rank risk. That includes shadow accounts, unknown assets, and unmanaged SaaS entry points. This is how defenders regain insight into the identity layer attackers are exploiting.

For holiday season readiness, that visibility matters.

Where UncommonX Creates Impact

UncommonX helps organizations:

• Detect abnormal identity behavior, even when attackers use valid credentials
• Map privileged access pathways across SaaS environments
• Monitor token usage for anomalies such as long-lived sessions or unusual geolocation
• Identify exposure in help desk identity recovery workflows
• Consolidate alerts and data into a single operational view

Resilience Means Being Ready, Especially When It Is Inconvenient

Identity-layer compromise is now the primary attack path, with cybercrime groups exploiting trust instead of code—manipulating authentication flows, service desks, and SaaS access paths to operate inside your environment as if they belong there. 

As the holiday season approaches, security leaders need to ask not whether they have enough tools, but whether they can detect and prevent identity takeover when the attacker sounds like a real employee and requests an MFA reset while key staff are offline. Cyber resilience means being able to respond with clarity, even when it’s inconvenient.

Organizations that have visibility across identity, access, SaaS platforms, and device trust will be prepared. Those relying only on endpoint alerts or firewall rules will not. If you’d like to learn more about how our patented Exposure Management platform can help your organization gain clarity and reduce risk, we’d be glad to connect. Contact us today.