Why the last six weeks of the year are the riskiest stretch for Tasmanian businesses, and how to get through it without a costly mistake.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the run into Christmas are the busiest trading weeks of the year for many Tasmanian businesses, and that’s exactly why criminals treat them as open season. Heavier workloads, stretched staff and a rush to get orders out the door are a gift to anyone trying to slip a fraudulent request past you.
People running scams in this period aren’t hoping you’re careless. They’re counting on you being busy. Fewer staff covering more volume, more invoices moving through the business, and less time to double-check anything unusual is exactly the environment they want. Industry groups, including the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and payment protection providers, issue the same warning every year: scam attempts climb sharply around Black Friday and through to Christmas. Small businesses are a particular target because they usually manage their own finances without a dedicated finance or IT team to catch something unusual.
It’s Rarely a Stranger. It’s Someone You Already Trust.
The most effective scams right now aren’t obviously fake. Criminals pose as vendors a business already deals with, sometimes after sitting quietly inside that vendor’s own email for weeks, learning how invoices are normally worded before sending one that looks exactly right.
Picture a Tasmanian retailer placing a larger-than-usual stock order ahead of Black Friday, arranged through the usual email thread with a long-standing supplier. A few days before payment is due, an email arrives in that same thread. Same names, same signature, same tone. The supplier has “changed banks,” and here are the new account details for this payment only, around fifteen thousand dollars. Staff are flat out with the sale and the email looks right, so the payment goes out. It’s only when the real supplier asks days later why they haven’t been paid that the business realises the attacker had been reading that supplier’s mailbox for weeks. This is a composite of the pattern we see every year in this period, not one specific case, but every element in it is common.
AI Has Made the Impersonation Better, Not Just Faster
The emails, texts and even voice messages used in these scams read and sound more convincingly human than they used to, a direct result of the same AI tools legitimate businesses are adopting. A message that looks like it’s from a supplier you’ve worked with for years deserves the same scrutiny it always did, maybe more, especially in the one week a year you’re least likely to stop and check.
The Small Habits That Actually Stop This
None of the effective defences here are complicated. Multi-factor authentication or passkeys on your email and payment systems close off the easiest way in. A standing rule that any change to bank details is confirmed by phone, on a number you already had on file rather than one in the email, stops the most common version of this scam cold. And slowing down on anything unusual, even in your busiest week, costs far less than the alternative.
The Pritech Approach
At Pritech, we help Tasmanian businesses put these habits in place before the rush hits.
Get ahead of the end-of-year rush and get in touch with our team today.
