The holiday season is synonymous with a massive increase in shipping and logistics. Your business is sending and receiving more packages, and as a result, your team’s inboxes are overflowing with tracking updates, delivery exceptions, and invoices from carriers like UPS, FedEx, and Amazon.
While most of these notifications are legitimate, cybercriminals expertly use this high volume as cover. They craft convincing fake shipping emails or texts designed to trick your busiest employees into making one wrong click, a click that could lead to a data breach, ransomware infection, or financial loss.
Vigilance is important, but in the face of such a concentrated and sophisticated onslaught, vigilance alone is not a sufficient defense. Protecting your business requires a deeper understanding of the threat and a multi-layered security strategy.
The Anatomy of a Phishing Attack
These scams are effective because they prey on basic human psychology, especially during a hectic time of year. Attackers build their campaigns around three key principles:
- Urgency: The most effective scams create a sense of panic. Subject lines like “Failed Delivery Attempt” or “Your Package is On Hold” prompt an immediate, often thoughtless, reaction. An employee wanting to be helpful will try to solve the “problem” right away.
- Trust: By perfectly mimicking the branding, logos, and language of a trusted carrier, scammers piggyback on established credibility. The email looks like it’s from FedEx, so the recipient’s guard is naturally lower.
- Volume: Your team is expecting these types of emails. When a fake one is buried among dozens of legitimate notifications, it’s far more likely to be treated as authentic. The scam effectively hides in plain sight.
Training Your Team to Be a Human Firewall
While technical defenses are critical, your employees are your first line of defense. Provide them with clear, simple training to spot the tell-tale signs of a fraudulent email.
- Verify the Source: This is the number one giveaway. Scammers cannot fake a company’s true email domain. A legitimate email from UPS will come from an “@ups.com” address. Hover your mouse over the sender’s name to reveal the actual sending address. If it’s a generic Gmail account or a strange, misspelled domain like “@fedex-deliveries.net,” it’s a fake.
- Scrutinize the Message: Look for anything that seems unprofessional. Is the email demanding immediate action or threatening a negative consequence? Does it contain spelling mistakes or awkward grammar? Legitimate companies have professional communication teams; scammers often do not.
- Inspect the Destination: Never trust a hyperlink at face value. Before you click, hover your mouse over the link to see the real URL that it leads to. If the link says “Track Your Shipment” but the preview shows a bizarre, non-carrier website, it is a trap.
- Establish a Protocol: The safest policy is to never click links in unexpected shipping emails. Instruct your team to open a new browser window, go directly to the official carrier’s website, and manually enter the tracking number from the order to check its status.
FAQs
How much damage can one wrong click actually cause?
The damage can be immediate and severe. A single click can deploy ransomware that encrypts your entire network, bringing your business to a complete halt. It can install spyware that silently captures passwords and financial information. It can also redirect an employee to a fake login page, tricking them into giving away their credentials and giving the attacker a key to your digital kingdom.
Are these scams limited to email?
No. Scammers are increasingly using text messages for phishing, a practice known as “smishing.” You or your employees might receive a text claiming to be from a delivery service with a link to “track your package.” These links are just as dangerous and should be treated with the same extreme caution as email links.
We’re a small company. Are we really a target for these scams?
Yes. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses are often seen as ideal targets. Cybercriminals know that smaller companies may lack the dedicated IT staff and robust cybersecurity budgets of large corporations. This makes them “softer” targets that still hold valuable assets, including customer data, financial records, and proprietary information.
Isn’t employee training enough to stop this?
Employee training is integral, but it’s not infallible. Even the most well-trained employee can make a mistake when they are stressed, rushed, or distracted. A strong cybersecurity posture assumes that a mistake will eventually happen and relies on a technical safety net to prevent that single click from becoming a major incident.
Fortifying Your Defenses Beyond Vigilance
Your employees are human, and the holiday season pushes them to their limits. Expecting them to be perfect 100% of the time is an unrealistic security strategy. That is why a robust technical defense is non-negotiable.
IPM provides layers of security that protect your business when human error occurs. This includes advanced email filtering to block malicious emails before they are ever seen, managed endpoint protection to stop malware from running if a link is clicked, and a team constantly monitoring your network for suspicious activity.
Let your team focus on their work this season with the confidence that a professional safety net is in place. Do not let their or your inbox become the entry point for a holiday disaster.
