Researchers say seasonal promotions and gift messages are being used to quietly collect personal data.
Security researchers have identified a series of phishing campaigns that use Christmas-themed emails to collect personal and financial information. According to reporting by TechRadar, the messages are designed to resemble routine holiday promotions, wine offers, gift confirmations, or document notifications, rather than traditional phishing alerts. The emails often pass basic spam checks and lead users into multi-step forms that request sensitive information.
The campaigns rely on bulk email infrastructure that mirrors legitimate marketing platforms, including clean formatting, branding elements, tracking links, and unsubscribe options. Once a recipient clicks a link, they are redirected through a chain of websites that present what appear to be seasonal financial offers or order-related questions. Initial prompts request low-risk details, such as eligibility or purchase confirmation, before escalating to requests for identity information, employment data, and banking credentials. In some cases, the process continues across multiple domains, allowing attackers to reuse collected data while encouraging victims to submit additional details. A separate set of messages targets business users by impersonating DocuSign notifications related to holiday purchases, leading to credential harvesting pages directed at corporate email accounts.
Researchers noted that these campaigns succeed because they avoid urgency-driven language and instead blend into high-volume holiday inbox traffic. By presenting as ordinary promotional or transactional messages, the emails are more likely to be skimmed rather than scrutinized. Analysts also pointed out that malware detection tools offer limited protection, since the attacks focus on information collection rather than malicious downloads. Users were advised to verify sender domains, inspect link destinations, and access financial or document services directly through official websites rather than email links.
According to a HIPAA Times publication summarizing recent FBI warnings, these holiday-themed phishing campaigns align with a broader rise in account takeover fraud during peak shopping periods. The FBI reported more than 5,000 account takeover complaints since January 2025, with losses topping $260 million, noting that criminals rely on impersonation and phishing rather than obvious malware. The bureau warned that seasonal distractions make users more likely to trust familiar-looking emails and follow links without verifying the source, creating ideal conditions for quiet credential and financial data theft.
High email volume and routine promotional messages reduce scrutiny, making fraudulent emails easier to overlook.
They often start with basic details and escalate to personal identifiers, employment information, banking credentials, and login details.
Redirect chains allow scammers to reuse stolen data and prompt victims to share additional information across different domains.
No. These campaigns rely on social engineering rather than malware, which limits the effectiveness of traditional endpoint protection.
They should slow down email review, verify sender addresses, avoid clicking embedded links, and access services directly through bookmarked or official websites.