On the surface, the water looks calm.

That’s what makes Shark Week fascinating every year. The danger is rarely visible right away. It’s what’s already moving underneath.

Cybercriminals operate the same way. The threats businesses face are designed to blend in with normal operations until the moment something breaks, money moves or systems go down.

When schedules shift, employees are on holiday and oversight gets thinner, attackers know businesses are paying less attention.

Here are three ways Cybercriminals are circling right now.

1. Fake invoices and vendor impersonation

Attackers don't need to hack anything. They need just one believable email.

Business email compromise (BEC) works by impersonating a vendor, supplier or executive your team already trusts. The email arrives looking normal, someone pays the "vendor," and by the time anyone realises it wasn't legitimate, the damage is done.

When the person who normally approves payments is out, requests get rerouted to people who don't know what normal looks like. Temporary stand-ins are less likely to question urgency.

The fix: Build a verification process for any financial request via email. A quick confirmation call to a known number stops most of these before they go anywhere.

2. Phishing attacks that target distracted employees

Phishing works because it's engineered around how people behave when they're busy. A distracted employee sees a password reset and clicks. Someone gets a text from "IT." An email arrives before a meeting requesting urgent approval.

Nobody stops to verify because stopping feels like losing time.

The fix: Employees need to feel comfortable slowing down when something seems off—an unexpected login, a payment instruction out of nowhere or a link they weren't expecting. Speed is a weapon attackers use against you. Slowing down is how you take it away.

3. Third-party risks that travel fast

When a vendor with access to your systems is compromised, the threat travels directly into your environment. This supply chain exposure is often far greater than businesses realise. Software tools, service providers with credentials and contractors with lingering access all present paths most owners have never mapped.

Outsourcing a service doesn't outsource accountability.

Answer these three questions:

Which vendors can access your data or systems?

What are they connecting to?

Who is responsible internally for managing those relationships?

If those answers aren't clear, your exposure is increasing your risk.

That's where Pact IT Solutions can help. Talk to us today to find out more about our Cyber Security services.