At a glance, the water appears still.
That's exactly what makes Shark Week so compelling every year. The real danger isn't on the surface — it's already circling beneath it.
Cybercriminals work the same way. Today's threats are built to hide inside everyday business activity until something breaks, money is diverted, or critical systems fail.
And during the summer, when routines shift, employees travel, and oversight gets thinner, attackers know businesses are easier to catch off guard.
Here are three risks they're using right now.
1. Fake invoices and vendor impersonation
Attackers don't need to break into your network to cause serious damage. Often, one convincing email is enough.
That's the idea behind business email compromise (BEC): criminals pose as a vendor, supplier, or executive your team already recognizes and trusts.
The message looks legitimate, someone approves the payment, and by the time the fraud is discovered, the funds are gone.
These attacks rise sharply during vacation season for one simple reason. When the usual approver is unavailable, requests are redirected to employees who may not know what a normal transaction should look like. Temporary replacements are less likely to question urgency, and attackers count on that.
The solution is straightforward: create a verification step for every financial request that comes through email. A quick callback to a trusted, pre-verified number — not the number in the message — can stop most of these attacks before they succeed.
2. Phishing attacks that target distracted employees
Phishing works because it exploits human behavior when people are rushed.
Cybercriminals time these attacks carefully. A busy employee sees a password reset alert and clicks the link. Someone receives a text that appears to come from IT. An email arrives just before a meeting asking for urgent wire approval. In the moment, verifying it feels slower than responding.
The strongest defense isn't just technology — it's a culture that encourages people to pause.
Employees should feel empowered to stop and verify when something seems unusual:
· An unexpected login prompt
· A payment request that came out of nowhere
· A link in an email they weren't expecting
Attackers rely on urgency to push mistakes through. When your team slows down, you take that advantage away.
3. Third-party risks that travel fast
If a vendor with access to your systems is compromised, the threat doesn't stop with them. It can move directly into your environment through the connection they already have to your business.
This is supply chain exposure, and many organizations have far more of it than they realize. Connected software, service providers with stored credentials, and contractors whose access was never removed after a project ended can all create openings that go unnoticed for years.
Outsourcing a service does not outsource responsibility.
To understand your supply chain exposure, you need clear answers to three questions:
1. Which vendors can access your data or systems?
2. What are they connected to?
3. Who internally owns those relationships?
If those answers aren't clear, your risk is already higher than it should be.
By the time you notice it, it's already in motion
Sharks don't announce themselves — and neither do the cybercriminals targeting your business right now.
The companies that get hit aren't always the ones who ignore obvious warning signs. More often, they're the ones who assume everything is fine because nothing looks wrong.
Summer is when schedules loosen, attention drifts, and the water looks calmest. It's also when attackers become more active.
We help businesses identify where they're exposed across vendors, employee behavior, and daily operations before those gaps turn into costly problems.
If you don't know where your business stands, schedule a 15-Minute Discovery Call.
Click here or give us a call at (419) 522-4001 to schedule your free 15-Minute Discovery Call.
