United Kingdom retailers are experiencing a significant increase in cyberattacks as the holiday shopping season approaches, with intrusion attempts rising 169% year-over-year, as first reported by Tech Radar.
SonicWall recorded 23.3 million intrusion attempts between January and September 2026, with 97% of these attacks targeting web applications. Threat actors are actively mapping retail infrastructure to exploit vulnerabilities, with directory traversal being the most prevalent method, accounting for 10.5 million recorded incidents. Other common techniques include remote code execution and cross-site scripting. Notably, the legacy Log4Shell vulnerability remains a persistent threat, with over 263,000 hits identified by security sensors. Spencer Starkey, the executive vice president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at SonicWall, noted that criminals prioritize stealing personally identifiable information during the peak trading quarter, knowing retailers are reluctant to take systems offline for patching. Experts warn that stolen customer data often facilitates secondary crimes, including wire fraud, phishing scams and social engineering attacks against other organizations. The findings highlight the critical need for robust security measures as ecommerce platforms prepare for high-volume traffic during Black Friday and the Christmas period.
Source: Tech Radar
