Distributed spam distraction (DSD) attacks are on the rise, as cybercriminals are banking on the busyness of the holidays to conduct cyberattacks in plain sight. These attacks aim to bury legitimate email alerts such as password change emails and the like.

A lot of people get a handful of spam in their email inboxes every day. While spam can be a nuisance, it only takes a few minutes to delete or block spam. But if you receive tens of thousands of spam all at the same time, a huge chunk of your time and energy will be wasted on dealing with them — and they might actually be hiding telltale signs that you're being attacked by cybercriminals.

Every day, you receive dozens of email messages, including spam, which is usually harmless, unless there’s a malware attached to it. But even the harmless ones can become more than just an annoyance if you have thousands of them flooding your inbox.

Cybercriminals are fairly experienced at avoiding detection. By the time you notice they’ve infected your computer with malware or hijacked your account, serious damage has most likely already been done. To make matters worse, they have another way to hide their illegal activities, and it involves sending thousands of spam emails.

Today marks exactly 10 days before Christmas...the mad rush to get all of the Christmas responsibilities done is at its most heightened point!  Folks are in a hurry, hassled and stressed.  When our focus is on a million things, it may not be on security diligence while we are out and about during the Holiday season.

We live with crime everyday.  It's become commonplace...unfortunately.  And, one of the frustrating aftermaths of being victimized by criminal activity is feeling victimized all over again when you try to rectify the situation and normalize your life.