Holiday Hits: Hackers Love to Strike When Defenders Are Away

Honeypots Reveal Automated Bots' 'Attack Intensity' Surged Over Christmastime 2025 Mathew J. Schwartz (euroinfosec) • January 30, 2026

Attack intensity surged over the Western winter holiday period, a trend consistent with hackers' propensity for probing defenses and striking during off hours to maximize dwell time before being discovered.

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This well-known phenomenon has obvious implications for how organizations monitor networks and ensure they have sufficiently robust coverage, experts said.

"While humans were away, bots were at their most active," said Milivoj Rajić, head of threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm DynaRisk, drawing on honeypot data gathered from Dec. 19 through the first 10 days of this year.

Bot activity surged over those three weeks and it hit and maintained a peak last month from Dec. 25 through Dec. 31, he told Information Security Media Group. That's based on ...