IT Trends Weekly — a curated, citation-first roundup for busy IT leaders.

Holiday Mode Is the Most Dangerous IT Configuration

Context. The end of the year puts many organizations into what we’ll call “holiday mode”: reduced staffing, delayed approvals, change freezes, and slower vendor response times. While this feels operationally normal, it quietly alters your security and reliability posture. Threat actors understand this cycle well, and incident data consistently shows spikes during holidays and long weekends. This issue focuses on what actually breaks when teams go dark — and what to lock down before January.^{[CISA][Microsoft]}

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Table of contents

• What changes in holiday mode
• Why it matters
• First 48 hours: holiday readiness audit
• Operational realities
• Evidence leaders want
• 7-day plan: lock it down, don’t redesign
• AI trend (blurb)
• FAQ
• Sources & citations

What changes in holiday mode

Staffing drops. Fewer eyes on dashboards, alerts, and logs means slower detection and response. Even well-configured monitoring loses value if no one is watching it in real time.^[CISA]

Change freezes create blind spots. While freezes reduce risk from change, they also delay fixes for certificates, identity issues, and misconfigurations that don’t respect calendars.^[Microsoft]

Identity risk quietly increases. As discussed in last week’s issue, identity is now the primary perimeter. During holiday mode, dormant accounts, MFA exceptions, and standing admin access often go unreviewed for weeks — exactly the conditions attackers exploit.^{[Microsoft][Mandiant]}

Why it matters

• Detection slows before containment. Most damage occurs in the gap between compromise and response — not during initial access.^[Mandiant]
• Backups are assumed, not tested. Many organizations rely on “successful job” reports instead of verified restores, leaving unpleasant surprises during incidents.^[NIST]
• Escalation paths break. Vendor contacts, on-call rotations, and executive approvals often fail when people are unavailable or traveling.

First 48 hours: holiday readiness audit

• Test a restore. Perform at least one real backup restore — file, VM, or system — not just a status check.^[NIST]
• Review identity enforcement. Confirm MFA is enforced, legacy authentication is blocked, and no “temporary” exclusions remain active.
• Validate admin access. Ensure privileged accounts are minimal, documented, and monitored.
• Confirm alert routing. Verify alerts reach someone during nights, weekends, and holidays.
• Update escalation contacts. Vendors, ISPs, MSPs, and cloud providers — confirm paths actually work.

Operational realities

• Automation does not replace people. Alerts without response capability are false confidence.
• Runbooks beat dashboards. Clear SOPs matter more than sophisticated tooling when staff is thin.
• Standardization matters most now. Inconsistent environments fail harder when fewer people are available to improvise.

Evidence leaders want

• Date of last verified backup restore
• Number of active privileged accounts during holiday period
• After-hours alert coverage confirmation
• Documented incident response contacts
• Identity exceptions currently approved

7-day plan: lock it down, don’t redesign

• Day 1–2: Validate backups, identity enforcement, and alert routing
• Day 3: Remove dormant accounts and excess admin access
• Day 4: Update SOPs and incident contacts
• Day 5: Test escalation paths (internal & vendors)
• Day 6: Freeze risk, not visibility — keep logging active
• Day 7: Publish a one-page holiday readiness summary

AI trend (blurb)

Holiday staffing magnifies AI risk. AI tools and automation inherit existing permissions. When staffing is reduced, over-permissioned identities combined with AI increase blast radius rather than resilience. Governance and identity discipline remain prerequisites — especially during low-coverage periods.^[Microsoft]

FAQ

• Should we avoid changes entirely? No. Avoid unnecessary changes, but continue fixes that reduce risk.
• Is holiday mode really worse? Yes — reduced response capability changes risk math.
• What if we’re a small team? Smaller teams benefit the most from standardization and clear runbooks.

Sources & citations

1. CISA — Known Exploited Vulnerabilities & holiday risk advisories
2. Microsoft — Zero Trust and identity security guidance
3. Mandiant — Incident response and dwell-time analysis
4. NIST SP 800-61 & 800-53 — Incident response and backup testing