6 Critical IT Tasks to Complete Before Shutting Down for the Holidays

While most businesses are prepping for holiday parties and year-end reports, Managed IT Service Providers are busy orchestrating their own critical countdown: protecting company systems from the surge of opportunistic cybercriminals who view the festive season as prime hunting time. 

The stakes are brutally high: a poorly managed holiday shutdown can transform your tech ecosystem from a well-oiled machine into a nightmare of unaddressed vulnerabilities, unpatched systems, and neglected infrastructure. And the annoying truth is that tech issues don’t take vacations – they multiply. A few overlooked details can quickly develop into full-blown system failures, data breaches, or performance problems that will make your first workday of the new year feel like a tech support hellscape. 

Thankfully, there’s an easy cure. 

A methodical approach to holiday prep can provide your organisation with enhanced security, optimised performance, and a rock-solid foundation that sets the tone for the entire new year. 

Ready to master pre-holiday tech prep? Head straight down to the guide, starting at Task 1. By the time you reach the final section, you’ll have all the holiday cybersecurity tips you need to transform the silly season from a potential risk into a calculated opportunity. 

Still not convinced that IT preparedness is mission-critical for your business when everything will be shut down anyway? The following story might change your mind.

The SolarWinds Data Breach: A Holiday Horror Story

In December 2020, cybercriminals executed one of the most sophisticated supply chain attacks in recent history, compromising SolarWinds’ Orion software update system. The breach began around September 2019 but wasn’t discovered until December 2020 – right in the heart of the holiday season.

Exploiting the skeleton crews and reduced vigilance typical of year-end periods, hackers inserted malicious code into software updates that were then distributed to approximately 18,000 customers, including Fortune 500 companies and critical government agencies. When these organisations returned from their holiday breaks, they discovered attackers had been silently traversing their networks for months.

The United States Treasury, Commerce, and Energy Departments were among the high-profile victims. FireEye, a prominent cybersecurity firm, was the first to detect the breach, revealing that attackers had accessed their red team tools (the digital equivalent of master keys). The total cost and impact of the SolarWinds breach are still being calculated years later.

We share this story to illustrate the fact that this isn’t just a theoretical risk. Whether you completely shut down over the holidays or operate with a skeleton crew, unplanned IT disruptions can transform an otherwise peaceful break into a nightmare scenario. 

Thankfully, the following straightforward actions can set you up for a safe and secure holiday period. Tick off each of these holiday cybersecurity tips, and you can look forward to a genuinely peaceful break, with no sleep lost over what might be happening beneath the surface of your software and systems. 

Holiday Cybersecurity Tips

Task 1: Comprehensive System Backup and Verification

Backing up your systems isn’t about casually copying files – it’s about creating a robust, multi-layered backup strategy that would make a paranoid doomsday prepper proud.

You need to take a comprehensive approach that addresses data integrity, accessibility, recovery speed, and comprehensive protection against diverse threat vectors – from hardware failures and human error to sophisticated cyberattacks.

A robust backup strategy requires understanding the nuanced differences between backup types. 

Full backups capture entire systems, incremental backups track changes since the last backup, and differential backups record all changes since the last full backup. 

Each has strategic advantages depending on your infrastructure’s complexity, data volume, and recovery time objectives. Critical systems might require near-continuous backup solutions that minimise potential data loss to mere minutes, while less dynamic systems can tolerate more traditional backup approaches.

How to Prepare for the Holidays: 

• Perform full system backups across all critical infrastructure
• Verify backup integrity through test restores
• Ensure offsite and cloud backups are current and accessible
• Create a clear inventory of backup locations and access credentials

Pro tip: Don’t just assume your backups work. Test them with the same intensity a NASA engineer would test a Mars rover. Verification isn’t particularly fun, but neither is data loss.

Backup Best Practices:

• Use the 3-2-1 backup rule: three copies, two different media types, one offsite
• Encrypt sensitive backup data
• Clearly document your backup processes 
• Set up automated verification processes

Task 2: Patch Management and System Updates

Software vulnerabilities represent a persistent, silent threat to organisational infrastructure. Each unpatched system is a potential entry point for cybercriminals, with seemingly minor gaps in software creating opportunities for devastating attacks. 

Patch management is a strategic process of identifying, prioritising, and implementing software fixes across your entire technological ecosystem. The complexity increases exponentially for organisations with different types of hardware, multiple software platforms, and interconnected systems. 

Some patches resolve minor bugs, while others close critical security holes that could compromise entire networks. Ironically, the very tools designed to protect us – software systems – are simultaneously our greatest vulnerability and our most critical defence mechanism. With this unavoidable reality in mind, your patch management approach should be less “update when convenient” and more “treat each patch like it could save your company’s life”.

How to Prepare for the Holidays: 

• Review and apply all pending security patches
• Update firmware for network equipment, servers, and critical infrastructure
• Test patches in a staging environment first
• Create a rollback plan for each major update

• Prioritise patches based on criticality and potential system impact
• Maintain a detailed log of all updates
• Validate system performance post-patch installation
• Ensure vendor support contracts are current for critical systems

Task 3: Security Audit and Access Management

Most companies operate with a false sense of security, believing their existing access controls and authentication mechanisms provide meaningful protection. The reality is far more grim: unauthorised access, compromised credentials, and poorly managed user permissions represent some of the most reliable pathways for coordinated cyberattacks.

Security audits are central to digital risk management, transforming potential catastrophic vulnerabilities into manageable, neutralised threats. 

A comprehensive security audit demands a systematic deconstruction of your entire digital access architecture. This means forensically examining every single user account, understanding precisely what access each credential represents, and eliminating anything that doesn’t serve a current, verifiable operational need. 

How to Prepare for the Holidays: 

• Conduct a detailed access rights audit
• Disable temporary or unnecessary user accounts
• Review and update your multifactor authentication protocols
• Analyse recent security logs for unusual activities

Year-Round Access Management Tactics:

• Implement the principle of least privilege
• Remove or suspend accounts for departing employees
• Rotate administrative credentials
• Update password policies and enforce strong authentication mechanisms

If you’d like help performing a comprehensive security audit and risk assessment, contact Invotec today. We find the hidden security gaps hackers look for, then design and implement practical safeguards to protect your business.

Task 4: Performance Optimisation and Resource Management

Most business owners view their technology as a static entity, failing to recognise that digital systems are eerily similar to living ecosystems that demand constant, nuanced management. The holiday shutdown represents a rare, strategic window where you can conduct deep surgical interventions that would be impossible during regular operational periods.

You’ll be thrilled to learn that seemingly minor optimisations during this time can cascade into significant performance gains. On the flipside, if you allow inefficient resource allocation to continue, it can snowball into a silent productivity killer that bleeds organisational potential through wasted computational capacity, unnecessary energy consumption, and reduced system responsiveness. 

So, your goal with this task is to create a lean, dynamically responsive tech environment that operates with the precision of a finely tuned racing engine.

How to Prepare for the Holidays: 

• Review and adjust server resource allocations
• Clear temporary files and cache
• Analyse and optimise database performance
• Review virtualisation resource utilisation

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Generate comprehensive system health reports
• Set up remote monitoring capabilities
• Configure automated alerts for critical system events
• Prepare a pre-shutdown performance baseline for comparison

Task 5: Disaster Recovery and Continuity Planning

The holiday season creates a unique vulnerability window where skeleton crews, reduced monitoring, and dispersed teams can transform a minor technical hiccup into a full-blown operational crisis. Think of disaster recovery planning like a 3D chess match against potential technological disruptions. Every move you make now can prevent a trap or checkmate later. 

Your disaster recovery plan needs to be mapped out in detail but also flexible enough to anticipate, adapt to, and neutralise potential threats before they can gain a foothold.

How to Prepare for the Holidays: 

• Review and update disaster recovery documentation
• Conduct a tabletop exercise simulating potential scenarios
• Update your contact list for emergency personnel
• Validate communication protocols for remote management

Continuity Preparation:

• Establish clear on-call rotations
• Create contingency plans for potential emergencies
• Prepare remote access protocols
• Document escalation procedures

Task 6: Communication and Coordination

Whether your business closes for a couple of days or a couple of weeks over the holiday period, crystal-clear communication is crucial. Your goal is to eliminate ambiguity, prevent unauthorised system access, and ensure your team knows exactly what to do (and not do) during the shutdown period.

Communication Strategies for the Holiday Period:

• Clearly define who is authorised to access work systems during the holiday period
• Specify exact methods of secure remote access (VPN, approved devices, multi-factor authentication) 
• Establish strict protocols for emergency access and define what constitutes an “emergency” 
• Communicate any blackout periods where no system access is permitted

For more detailed insights into maintaining robust cyber hygiene and secure remote work practices in general, we recommend checking out our comprehensive guides covering cyber hygiene for Australian businesses and zero trust security for remote and hybrid teams. 

Final Thoughts: Preparation is Your Best Defence

The difference between a smooth holiday shutdown and a potentially catastrophic system failure comes down to preparation. By putting these holiday cybersecurity tips into action, you can safeguard your company’s digital foundations.

If it all sounds like too much to fit into your already packed schedule, Invotec’s IT gurus can help. As a Managed Service Provider, we offer comprehensive IT support packages designed to transform your tech anxiety into total peace of mind. Our expert team can either guide you through a meticulously planned holiday shutdown or completely take over the process, providing 24/7 monitoring that ensures your systems remain secure, optimised, and running smoothly while you enjoy time with family and friends.

Our custom IT support solutions are tailored to fit every business’s unique needs and budget. Whether you’re a small startup or a large enterprise, we can design a package that provides the right level of protection and support. From comprehensive system audits to round-the-clock monitoring, we’re your digital guardians during the holiday season and beyond.

Ready for a stress-free holiday season?

Unwrap the gift of complete IT peace of mind. Contact Invotec today for a free, no-obligation consultation. Our team of IT experts will assess your specific needs and craft a holiday support strategy that lets you truly relax this festive season.