As Memorial Day Weekend approaches, many organizations prepare for a well-deserved break. Offices wind down, inboxes go quiet, and IT and security teams often scale back coverage. But while employees take time off, cybercriminals get to work.

Holiday weekends have become a prime hunting ground for attackers. Fewer eyes on dashboards, reduced monitoring and slower response times make these periods especially attractive for launching attacks. Threat actors know that the window for detection is wider — and they exploit this. 

Without a well-prepared security posture, organizations can find themselves not only compromised, but unaware of it until business resumes days later. The stakes are high, and the consequences can be long-lasting. 

This is why organizations must take proactive steps to bolster defenses before the weekend begins. It’s not just about protecting networks and systems — it’s about safeguarding the trust and privacy of employees, customers, and partners at a time when vigilance tends to slip.

The Ongoing Long Weekend Threat Surface

Long weekends don’t just slow down business operations — they quietly expand the attack surface. In fact, some of the most impactful cyber incidents have occurred over holiday periods. This played out last Memorial Day Weekend when the Seattle Public Library was hit by a cyberattack. The breach led to a multi-month long disruption in services and ended up costing the library over $1 million in recovery efforts. 

Recent research also shows that 86% of ransomware attacks are deployed during holidays or weekends. These aren’t random strikes. They’re carefully coordinated to coincide with moments of operational vulnerability and heightened pressure. 

From the Fourth of July to Labor Day to year-end holidays, attackers are increasingly timing campaigns to exploit moments when defenses are down, and the damage often extends well beyond the weekend. Companies need to treat holiday periods as elevated-risk windows requiring readiness, identity-layer defenses and tighter operational controls.

Identity at the Core of Modern Threats

Attackers are increasingly bypassing traditional defenses not by exploiting technical vulnerabilities, but by targeting identity. Whether it’s through phishing emails, credential stuffing, or exploiting dormant accounts, identity-based attacks are now a preferred method of entry.

According to IBM, phishing and the use of stolen or compromised credentials emerged as the leading causes of data breaches over the past year, accounting for 16% and 15% of incidents, respectively. This shift underscores a broader truth — identity is the modern attack surface. 

As part of building more resilient defenses, organizations are starting to reassess how they manage and verify identity, both for internal users and external ones. While central identity stores have become common, they can also become single points of failure. This is leading organizations to explore more distributed models for high-risk moments, including approaches that place more control and verification in the hands of users themselves.

Decentralized identity, for example, shifts away from centralized databases of credentials. Instead, individuals hold verifiable credentials issued by trusted sources, which can be shared securely when needed. This model reduces the size of credential repositories and limits how broadly credentials are reused or stored in vulnerable places.

Regardless, the goal is the same: minimizing privileges and ensuring identity verification is adaptive, based on real-time context and risk signals. During a holiday weekend, this can mean the difference between catching a breach in progress and discovering it days later.

Practical Security Steps to Implement Today

While decentralized identity is an important avenue for organizations to explore, there are also immediate actions security teams can take to improve preparedness.

Review and clean up privileged access

Ensure dormant or high-risk accounts are disabled or have temporary access removed. Conducting access reviews ahead of holiday periods is critical to minimizing exposure and ensuring that only those who truly need access are granted it.

Strengthen MFA

If multi-factor authentication (MFA) isn’t deployed universally, prioritize implementation for high-value systems and sensitive user groups. Using phishing-resistant methods, such as mobile push notifications, QR codes, hardware security keys, and FIDO-compliant authenticators, can help better protect against credential-based attacks.

Monitor for anomalies

Set up alerts for logins from unusual locations or at off-hours, and ensure someone is on call to investigate if needed. Leveraging AI or UEBA (User and Entity Behavior Analytics) can be especially helpful in flagging suspicious patterns. Additionally, providing a clear, secure channel for reporting anomalies can ensure red flags are surfaced in real time.

Communicate with employees

Remind staff to be cautious of phishing emails, especially those received just before or during the weekend, and to report anything unusual. Additionally, running a simulated holiday-weekend phishing or breach scenario — and clearly explaining the potential consequences – can help demonstrate the importance of shared responsibility in keeping the organization secure.

Securing Your Company During Memorial Day Weekend and Beyond

With 36% of consumers having reported falling victim to identity fraud, it’s never been more important for organizations to prioritize security, especially when the workforce is offline. While Memorial Day Weekend is a time for reflection and rest, it also calls for heightened vigilance. 

With a proactive, identity-first approach to security, organizations can reduce vulnerabilities — not just for one long weekend, but as part of a broader, year-round cyber resilience strategy.