Ransomware attacks are intensifying during the holiday shopping season, fueled by AI-driven scams and ransomware-as-a-service. E-commerce retailers—especially midRansomware attacks are intensifying during the holiday shopping season, fueled by AI-driven scams and ransomware-as-a-service. E-commerce retailers—especially mid

The Shadow of Ransomware on the Festive E-Shopping Season

The year-end holiday season is both festive and highly active for consumers and retailers. The former, on the one hand, want to relax and celebrate with their loved ones, and, on the other hand, want to take advantage of the many deals offered by retailers. The latter enjoys peak sales, but must work hard to beat competition in attracting customers.

Another factor makes festive shopping a tense period for e-commerce retailers. Hackers are targeting e-commerce platforms year-round. We have seen more than enough proof of that this year. The attack on M&S, to give just one example, is expected to reduce annual profits by £136m compared with last year. They were hit in the second quarter of the year, when ransomware attacks grew 113% year over year compared to the second quarter of 2024. Being hit early in the year leaves hope of bouncing back with the year-end sales.

But what if this trend continues and a successful attack comes during the most critical final quarter? Just imagining the potential loss is enough to make any retail executive nauseous.

Cybercriminals plotting ransomware attacks certainly consider the importance of the fourth quarter. High-profit opportunities come with greater pressure. During this time, one is more likely to pay the price of keeping the business going and agree to higher payouts. Retailers have hopefully done their homework in preparing to get ahead of these threats. But no one is completely secure, and the main battles are being fought right now.

What to know about ransomware in 2025?

Ransomware attacks are nothing new—they have been around at least since the late 1980s. However, as software and network security evolve, so does the threat of malicious software.

Major shifts, of course, come from advances in AI-enhanced cyberattacks. For example, Microsoft reports a 195% global increase in the usage of AI-generated identities. Scammers use AI to fake IDs, websites, and even deepfake videos to go through live checks.

At least two major ransomware attack vectors emerge here. Firstly, threat actors can fake the identities of company employees, including CEOs, to gain access to internal networks. Secondly, they can spoof entire companies to masquerade as third-party service providers. One takes no issue with signing all the data-handling and non-disclosure agreements you want when using a fake ID.

Another, partly related, major concern is the rise of ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). Just like the legal software-as-a-service model, its dark counterpart utilizes cloud computing to provide a subscription-based access to software. Except the software is specifically designed for cybercrime in this case.

Thus, today, e-commerce and other businesses are threatened by a broader range of potential assailants. Well-organized crime syndicates and individual hackers capable of building their own tools are joined by scattered solo criminals who only need to use the software already developed by others.

The threat of ransomware is bouncing back with new force; e-commerce platforms need to be prepared. What can retailers do to protect themselves while still doing business in, as the song goes, the most wonderful time of the year?

Staying safe while making year-end profit

Warding off ransomware attacks during the peak period is a mixture of preparation before Black Friday starts knocking at your door, and operational vigilance during it. Even if you are late with the steps that should ideally be done in advance, there are still important measures to consider as seasonal shopping fever rages.

Backing up crucial files

Improved backups are why ransomware encryption attacks, in which assailants encrypt crucial operational files and demand payment to restore business operations, are on the decline. As more companies wake up to this, attackers lose one of their major bargaining chips when extorting payments.

Festive shopping is when being up and running is beyond critical for e-commerce retailers. As major platforms will definitely have backups in place, attackers will target medium-sized businesses more. You don't want to be the one company that loses all its business to competitors because of a simple failure to back up files. Even if you are late to this, look into ways to back up your files as soon as possible without disrupting your clients' Christmas shopping.

Contact authorities for potential decryption keys

Even retailers who already find themselves at the losing end of a successful ransomware attack without good enough backups still have an option. Governmental agencies might have already decrypted some of the encryption used in ransomware attacks. For example, in 2024, the FBI announced that they have over 7,000 decryption keys that could help victims of the cybercrime group Lockbit decrypt their files.

Retailers who find themselves hacked should not panic and contact the FBI or other crime-fighting agencies immediately. While there is no guarantee, you have a chance of getting your business running without paying any ransom and in time to benefit from festive shopping.

Open-source intelligence gathering

In preparation for the peak e-commerce season, it is crucial for retailers to do their research. A lot of information about the newest ransomware and other campaigns is available online. Cybersecurity media outlets and forums might give you a sense of the threats out there and how to protect against them.

For a more comprehensive look at the threat landscape, you might want to use open source intelligence (OSINT) gathering and analysis tools. An automated approach also helps e-commerce businesses detect if they are already exposed, for example, by someone selling their leaked data on the dark web.

Increased vigilance during the peak period

Finally, e-commerce shops need to brace for the festive shopping season with increased vigilance. Constantly retraining employees to help them recognize phishing attempts is crucial. They need to be aware of the evolving dangers of social engineering attacks, especially during year-end shopping when urgency is felt everywhere.

Once, it was safer for those who conduct business in a language other than English, because phishing attempts were poorly translated into their language. With AI's improved multilingual capabilities, scammers can now craft convincing messages in any language. AI's improved language capabilities should especially concern European retailers. Europe is already the primary eCrime target, with 22% of victims on dedicated leak sites being from this region.

Generally, as the end of the year approaches and pressure to meet revenue targets increases, retailers must not let their guard down. On the contrary, to avoid the threat of ransomware, security procedures must be followed more rigorously than ever.

In conclusion

Ransomware is a major threat to e-commerce retailers this festive shopping season, accelerated by AI and other technological advancements. Attacks on major companies this year have shown that no one is completely safe. With convincing phishing schemes and ransomware tools becoming more accessible, small and medium businesses, as well as retailers in smaller markets, must also be vigilant. High-quality decision-making, even during sales fever, comes from preparation, intelligence gathering, and the resolve to adhere to standards.

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Summarize Any Stock’s Earnings Call in Seconds Using FMP API

Turn lengthy earnings call transcripts into one-page insights using the Financial Modeling Prep APIPhoto by Bich Tran Earnings calls are packed with insights. They tell you how a company performed, what management expects in the future, and what analysts are worried about. The challenge is that these transcripts often stretch across dozens of pages, making it tough to separate the key takeaways from the noise. With the right tools, you don’t need to spend hours reading every line. By combining the Financial Modeling Prep (FMP) API with Groq’s lightning-fast LLMs, you can transform any earnings call into a concise summary in seconds. The FMP API provides reliable access to complete transcripts, while Groq handles the heavy lifting of distilling them into clear, actionable highlights. In this article, we’ll build a Python workflow that brings these two together. You’ll see how to fetch transcripts for any stock, prepare the text, and instantly generate a one-page summary. Whether you’re tracking Apple, NVIDIA, or your favorite growth stock, the process works the same — fast, accurate, and ready whenever you are. Fetching Earnings Transcripts with FMP API The first step is to pull the raw transcript data. FMP makes this simple with dedicated endpoints for earnings calls. If you want the latest transcripts across the market, you can use the stable endpoint /stable/earning-call-transcript-latest. For a specific stock, the v3 endpoint lets you request transcripts by symbol, quarter, and year using the pattern: https://financialmodelingprep.com/api/v3/earning_call_transcript/{symbol}?quarter={q}&year={y}&apikey=YOUR_API_KEY here’s how you can fetch NVIDIA’s transcript for a given quarter: import requestsAPI_KEY = "your_api_key"symbol = "NVDA"quarter = 2year = 2024url = f"https://financialmodelingprep.com/api/v3/earning_call_transcript/{symbol}?quarter={quarter}&year={year}&apikey={API_KEY}"response = requests.get(url)data = response.json()# Inspect the keysprint(data.keys())# Access transcript contentif "content" in data[0]: transcript_text = data[0]["content"] print(transcript_text[:500]) # preview first 500 characters The response typically includes details like the company symbol, quarter, year, and the full transcript text. If you aren’t sure which quarter to query, the “latest transcripts” endpoint is the quickest way to always stay up to date. Cleaning and Preparing Transcript Data Raw transcripts from the API often include long paragraphs, speaker tags, and formatting artifacts. Before sending them to an LLM, it helps to organize the text into a cleaner structure. Most transcripts follow a pattern: prepared remarks from executives first, followed by a Q&A session with analysts. Separating these sections gives better control when prompting the model. In Python, you can parse the transcript and strip out unnecessary characters. A simple way is to split by markers such as “Operator” or “Question-and-Answer.” Once separated, you can create two blocks — Prepared Remarks and Q&A — that will later be summarized independently. This ensures the model handles each section within context and avoids missing important details. Here’s a small example of how you might start preparing the data: import re# Example: using the transcript_text we fetched earliertext = transcript_text# Remove extra spaces and line breaksclean_text = re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', text).strip()# Split sections (this is a heuristic; real-world transcripts vary slightly)if "Question-and-Answer" in clean_text: prepared, qna = clean_text.split("Question-and-Answer", 1)else: prepared, qna = clean_text, ""print("Prepared Remarks Preview:\n", prepared[:500])print("\nQ&A Preview:\n", qna[:500]) With the transcript cleaned and divided, you’re ready to feed it into Groq’s LLM. Chunking may be necessary if the text is very long. A good approach is to break it into segments of a few thousand tokens, summarize each part, and then merge the summaries in a final pass. Summarizing with Groq LLM Now that the transcript is clean and split into Prepared Remarks and Q&A, we’ll use Groq to generate a crisp one-pager. 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We’ll write a helper to summarize any text block, then run it for both sections and merge. import osimport textwrapimport requestsGROQ_API_KEY = os.environ.get("GROQ_API_KEY") or "your_groq_api_key"GROQ_BASE_URL = "https://api.groq.com/openai/v1" # OpenAI-compatibleMODEL = "llama-3.1-70b" # choose your preferred Groq modeldef call_groq(prompt, temperature=0.2, max_tokens=1200): url = f"{GROQ_BASE_URL}/chat/completions" headers = { "Authorization": f"Bearer {GROQ_API_KEY}", "Content-Type": "application/json", } payload = { "model": MODEL, "messages": [ {"role": "system", "content": "You are a precise, neutral equity research analyst."}, {"role": "user", "content": prompt}, ], "temperature": temperature, "max_tokens": max_tokens, } r = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=payload, timeout=60) r.raise_for_status() return r.json()["choices"][0]["message"]["content"].strip()def build_prompt(section_text, symbol, quarter, year): template = """ You are an equity research analyst. Summarize the following earnings call section for {symbol} ({quarter} {year}). Be factual and concise. Return: 1) TL;DR (3–5 bullets) 2) Results vs. guidance (what improved/worsened) 3) Forward outlook (specific statements) 4) Risks / watch-outs 5) Q&A takeaways (if present) Text: <<< {section_text} >>> """ return textwrap.dedent(template).format( symbol=symbol, quarter=quarter, year=year, section_text=section_text )def summarize_section(section_text, symbol="NVDA", quarter="Q2", year="2024"): if not section_text or section_text.strip() == "": return "(No content found for this section.)" prompt = build_prompt(section_text, symbol, quarter, year) return call_groq(prompt)# Example usage with the cleaned splits from Section 3prepared_summary = summarize_section(prepared, symbol="NVDA", quarter="Q2", year="2024")qna_summary = summarize_section(qna, symbol="NVDA", quarter="Q2", year="2024")final_one_pager = f"""# {symbol} Earnings One-Pager — {quarter} {year}## Prepared Remarks — Key Points{prepared_summary}## Q&A Highlights{qna_summary}""".strip()print(final_one_pager[:1200]) # preview Tips that keep quality high: Keep temperature low (≈0.2) for factual tone. If a section is extremely long, chunk at ~5–8k tokens, summarize each chunk with the same prompt, then ask the model to merge chunk summaries into one section summary before producing the final one-pager. If you also fetched headline numbers (EPS/revenue, guidance) earlier, prepend them to the prompt as brief context to help the model anchor on the right outcomes. Building the End-to-End Pipeline At this point, we have all the building blocks: the FMP API to fetch transcripts, a cleaning step to structure the data, and Groq LLM to generate concise summaries. The final step is to connect everything into a single workflow that can take any ticker and return a one-page earnings call summary. The flow looks like this: Input a stock ticker (for example, NVDA). Use FMP to fetch the latest transcript. Clean and split the text into Prepared Remarks and Q&A. Send each section to Groq for summarization. Merge the outputs into a neatly formatted earnings one-pager. Here’s how it comes together in Python: def summarize_earnings_call(symbol, quarter, year, api_key, groq_key): # Step 1: Fetch transcript from FMP url = f"https://financialmodelingprep.com/api/v3/earning_call_transcript/{symbol}?quarter={quarter}&year={year}&apikey={api_key}" resp = requests.get(url) resp.raise_for_status() data = resp.json() if not data or "content" not in data[0]: return f"No transcript found for {symbol} {quarter} {year}" text = data[0]["content"] # Step 2: Clean and split clean_text = re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', text).strip() if "Question-and-Answer" in clean_text: prepared, qna = clean_text.split("Question-and-Answer", 1) else: prepared, qna = clean_text, "" # Step 3: Summarize with Groq prepared_summary = summarize_section(prepared, symbol, quarter, year) qna_summary = summarize_section(qna, symbol, quarter, year) # Step 4: Merge into final one-pager return f"""# {symbol} Earnings One-Pager — {quarter} {year}## Prepared Remarks{prepared_summary}## Q&A Highlights{qna_summary}""".strip()# Example runprint(summarize_earnings_call("NVDA", 2, 2024, API_KEY, GROQ_API_KEY)) With this setup, generating a summary becomes as simple as calling one function with a ticker and date. 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