When the pandemic initially started, several retailers promptly opened their first online shops. Others diversified their product lines by including curbside pickup and online ordering, for example. The epidemic sped up the transition to online stores by five years in just a few short months. More retail cybersecurity is therefore required, as this shows.
As a result, there is currently a greater quantity of private and public data saved in the cloud than ever before. Store owners should review their retail cybersecurity measures now that the dust has cleared, though, to make sure the procedures and tools they put in place are effective.
Retail Cybersecurity: How Customers Are Protected
Understanding your consumers’ demands today and projecting their wants for the future in terms of products and customer experience is essential for long-term retail success. To do this with an e-commerce store, however, is more difficult than with a physical store. Making wise business decisions based on the data you have is the key to acquiring these important insights. Personalizing client experiences can improve revenue by 10% or more and multiply the return on investment by 5 to 8 times.
Many retailers mistakenly believe that all consumer customer data falls into one category. Businesses must consider each form of consumer data separately since each has a unique commercial value and risk component. Also, several platforms and server locations house various kinds of client data. To adequately safeguard it, you must be aware of where each category resides. The following categories of client data have been identified by Deloitte:
Account: Transactional and personal information, including name and address
Location: Physical location is determined by the mobile device location, and virtual location is determined by IP address
Browsing: Typical websites visited, including what, when, and where
Profile: data obtained from outside sources, such as social media and demography
How to Handle Issues in Retail Cybersecurity
Retailers must proactively secure all forms of client data due to the significance of this information. These top five retail cybersecurity techniques will help you safeguard client information from hacks in the retail sector.
Review the Budget
Establishing a dedicated budget for cybersecurity is the first step in protecting your data. The pandemic’s effects are projected to cause retailers to cut their IT budgets by 15% on average. Retailers must, however, argue for maintaining a strong and intact cybersecurity budget, or they run the danger of losing considerably more in the event that they are attacked.
Due to the shifting nature of business during a pandemic, eScan advises organisations to adopt a value-based approach to budgeting. You can more effectively lobby for the funding required to secure the data by emphasising its significance to the company. Threat modelling, which involves ranking risks according to importance, calculating the cost to the company, and developing countermeasures, can also be useful when creating a budget.
Encrypt Sensitive Data
Retail security vulnerabilities can affect data that is in transit between two locations, like from a server to a mobile phone. Data that is encrypted has additional security while in transit and can only be decrypted with the decryption key at the endpoint. Encryption requires, though, that you carefully balance use and privacy. Homomorphic encryption, which enables calculations on data even while it’s encrypted, is increasingly being used by many businesses.
Evaluate Physical Risks
When it comes to retail security threats and data, it’s easy only to consider risks once the data has been collected. The risk of a surface attack increases with self-scanners and self-point-of-sale systems. Cybercriminals may eventually find a way to break through chip and PIN protection, especially if retailers fail to protect themselves against POS malware attacks.
In addition to scanning POS systems directly and using anti-malware software on all terminals, retailers should employ network segmentation in order to limit any damages resulting from a surface attack. POS systems are heavily protected against breaches and attacks because they are only exposed to a very small portion of the network that does not contain sensitive information. By implementing cloud-based firewalls, retailers gain greater protection and control over their segmentation. Additionally, kiosks and POS systems should be patched immediately and default passwords changed.
Employees need to be Educated About Retail Cybersecurity, too
According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2020 Insider Threat Report, employee carelessness causes 65% of security events, and insider threats have increased by 38% in the retail sector during the last two years. Passwords are a major offender; according to eScan, 81% of harmful breaches begin with compromised passwords.
Training staff on best practices might be difficult with a large number of part-time and seasonal workers, but it must be a consistent priority. Retailers can enhance employee training by including cybersecurity best practices in the onboarding process for all new hires.
Retailers should explicitly address ransomware cybercrime since response speed is critical in ransomware assaults. You can minimise the damage by training staff members how to recognise an attack that is already underway and what to do next. Each employee should have access to and know where to find the IT security team’s contact information in an emergency.
Strengthen Malware Protection
The first line of defence against malware is malware protection. Egregor ransomware, which encrypts network devices and servers, recently targeted a significant retailer. Make sure every device has the most recent version of malware protection if your sales representatives use mobile devices to check out consumers or demonstrate internet possibilities. To maintain control, think about capping the amount of personal technology used by staff members at your retail establishment.
Cybersecurity in retail is good for business
Your clients entrust you with their information. Also, the success of your business as a store rests on your ability to sustain their loyalty by securing their data. You can use the information you get to enhance the shopping experience and cultivate a following of devoted patrons for your business by taking the proper precautions with your retail cybersecurity protection efforts.
