At a glance, the water appears calm.
That's exactly what makes Shark Week so compelling each year. The real danger isn't sitting on the surface where everyone can see it. It's already moving below it.
Cybercriminals work the same way. Today's threats are built to hide inside normal business activity until the moment something breaks, money changes hands, or systems suddenly stop working.
And during the summer, when routines shift, people travel, and oversight gets thinner, attackers know many businesses are paying less attention.
Here are three threats they're using right now.
1. Fraudulent invoices and vendor impersonation
In many cases, attackers don't need to break in at all. They only need to send one convincing email.
This tactic is known as business email compromise (BEC), and it relies on impersonating a vendor, supplier, or executive your team already trusts.
The message looks routine, someone approves payment to the "vendor," and by the time the fraud is discovered, the loss has already happened.
These attacks increase during vacation season for a reason. When the usual approver is away, requests get routed to someone who may not know what normal should look like. Temporary replacements are also less likely to challenge urgency, and criminals count on that.
The fastest way to reduce the risk: Set a verification process for every financial request that comes by email. A short confirmation call to a known number—not the number in the message—can stop most of these scams before money leaves your business.
2. Phishing attacks aimed at distracted staff
Phishing succeeds because it is designed around how people react when they're busy.
Cybercriminals engineer these moments on purpose. An employee sees a password reset notice and clicks without thinking. Someone receives a text that appears to be from IT. An email lands just before a meeting with an urgent request to approve a wire transfer. No one pauses to verify because slowing down feels inconvenient.
The best defense isn't just technology; it's company culture.
Employees need to know it's okay to stop and check when something feels off:
· An unexpected login request
· A payment instruction that appeared out of nowhere
· A link in an email they weren't expecting
Attackers use speed against you. Slowing down takes that advantage away.
3. Third-party risks that spread quickly
If a vendor with access to your systems is compromised, the threat doesn't stay contained on their side. It can move directly into your environment through the connection they have to your business.
This is supply chain exposure, and many businesses have far more of it than they realize. Software tools connected to the network, service providers holding credentials, and contractors whose access was never removed after a project ended all create risk paths that often go unmapped.
Outsourcing a service does not outsource accountability.
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 inside your organization is responsible for managing those relationships?
If those answers aren't clear, your business is carrying unnecessary risk.
By the time you notice it, it's already in motion
Sharks don't announce themselves, and neither do the cybercriminals targeting businesses right now.
The companies that get hit are not always the ones that overlook obvious warning signs. More often, they're the ones that 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 are most active.
We help businesses see where they're exposed across vendors, employee behavior, and daily operations before a costly incident occurs.
If you don't know where your business stands, schedule a 15-Minute Discovery Call.
Click here or give us a call at (925) 766-4005 to schedule your free 15-Minute Discovery Call.
