‘Tis the season to be hacked! As holiday cheer fills the air and consumers flock to online stores, cybercriminals are busy conjuring up their own version of a winter wonderland—complete with digital heists and cyber cookies for Santa’s bot army. Who needs elves when automated campaigns can do all the heavy lifting?

While retailers hope for record-breaking sales, hackers are planning their own kind of records: the most credentials stuffed into a single campaign. It’s an exciting time for both parties, really. Retailers run their systems hot, like a turkey left too long in the oven, hoping to withstand the onslaught, while teams run as lean as their Turkey Day leftovers.

Meanwhile, threat reports, much like your Aunt Linda’s holiday newsletter, keep insisting that this year’s chaos will be ‘unprecedented.’ But we all know the truth: nothing says ‘peak shopping event’ like a good old-fashioned account takeover attempt. After all, what’s Black Friday without a little black market revelry?