12/10/2024
The Night Before Christmas: Cyber Edition
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the ‘net,
Hackers were scheming, their traps freshly set.
Phishing emails were crafted with care,
In hopes that no cautious employee’d be there.
The inboxes were flooded with tracking alerts,
“Your package has shipped!”—complete with fake perks.
And Susan in Sales, without second thought,
Clicked the link in her haste, and malware was caught.
The IT team groaned, their coffee in hand,
Another late night—a ransomware demand!
For what should appear on the compromised screens,
But a message from hackers, and Bitcoin schemes.
“Dear victim,” it said, “your files we’ve encrypted,
Pay up by Christmas, or they’ll be restricted!”
While HR was tricked by a gift card request,
The scammers worked quickly—they never do rest.
Then out on the servers arose such a clatter,
The SOC sprang to action to see what was the matter.
To the dashboards they flew with speed and with care,
To halt all intrusions before they’d spread everywhere.
And there in the logs, to their wondering eyes,
Was a command-and-control server cleverly disguised.
With a sleigh full of botnets, so lively and quick,
The hackers had names like Sven, Igor, and Rick.
“Now PayPal! Now Venmo! Now Zelle and QuickBooks!
Send money to proxies! Don’t check how it looks!”
Through every firewall, past endpoints they flew,
With trojans, and keyloggers, and ransomware too.
But IT was ready; their defenses were tight,
With backups and training, they put up a fight.
From MFA tokens to patched-up old servers,
The company’s team was cybersecurity’s preservers.
Then a call from the CEO came through the phone,
“I got a weird email; I almost clicked ‘loan’!”
They sighed with relief—this time, they were lucky,
That no one fell victim to scams that were yucky.
And as dawn broke on Christmas, the hackers withdrew,
Foiled by smart users who’d known what to do.
For they’d been trained well, by a team so astute,
With policies, updates, and holiday brute.
So hear this advice as you shop and you cheer:
Beware the fake emails that swarm every year.
If a link seems suspicious, or strange in its look,
Double-check twice—or call IT’s nook!
And I heard them exclaim as they logged off that night,
“Happy holidays to all, and stay cyber-tight!”
