The Dark Side of Black Friday: When Ransomware Attacks Join the Shopping Rush

As retail traffic peaks during Black Friday, the report warns of dramatic increases in phishing and ransomware campaigns that exploit overwhelmed infrastructure and staff, citing 2024 incidents where fake retail sites led to payment-system ransomware and data leaks; it highlights rising ransom demands and double-extortion tactics and advocates modern SASE (via Cato) — unified threat prevention, ZTNA, AI-driven detection, and safe TLS inspection — to reduce visibility gaps and prevent widespread outages and data loss.