The retail industry has embraced digital transformation to offer brand experiences that are inviting, authentic, distinctive, and personalized. From e-commerce sites to digital payment systems, technology is helping retailers bring more choices, convenience, and speed to the consumer buying experience.
However, as retailers collect large amounts of customers’ financial and personal data, they become attractive targets for cybercriminals.
“With the growth of online shopping, your business needs a robust security strategy to protect customer data, improve privacy, and prevent fraud,” says Jennifer Trammell, Advizex’s director of retail and manufacturing.
Understanding Common Security Gaps In The Retail Sector
The first step to managing cybersecurity risk and protecting customers’ data is identifying typical security weaknesses in retail networks. Here are some prevalent security flaws to enhance your defenses against:1
Supply Chain Cyber Risks
The same technology that boosts supply chain efficiency can expose retailers to cyber threats. For instance, the retail supply chain often involves numerous external parties, each with different cybersecurity systems. With each third party, the risk of exposing your customer data increases because you don’t have control of their security procedures.
Addressing supply chain vulnerabilities starts with conducting thorough due diligence when selecting vendors to ensure they meet your company’s cybersecurity standards. You can also control how stakeholders interact with your company’s technology using a client less, zero-trust network access solution that uses isolation technology. This solution protects your network by strictly controlling and verifying access.
Insider Credit Card Theft
One of the most serious threats to retailers is employee-driven credit card theft. Hackers may manipulate or coerce employees with access to financial data into stealing credit card details to aid outside criminals. To prevent internal credit card theft, educate employees about the risks of misusing customers’ credit card information as well as the severe consequences of exposing users’ data.
Data Breaches and Leaks
Many online retailers save clients’ credit card data to improve the experience of returning customers. However, this comes with a high risk of exposing customers’ financial and proprietary information in case of a breach or leak.
You can prevent data breaches and leaks by implementing encryptions, deploying access control, and continuously monitoring your network.
System Automation Vulnerabilities
Many retail companies use automation systems to reduce operation costs and improve efficiency. However, automated processes often run with elevated privileges to perform tasks across different parts of your system. Hackers can exploit these elevated privileges to disrupt operations or deploy malware if you don't manage access properly.
Fortifying Retail Cybersecurity To Minimize Risk and Strengthen Trust
Cyber attacks devastate businesses.2 The average data breach cost is about $4.88 million, with the highest incidents costing retailers up to $5.17 million.3
You can prevent cyber incidents from disrupting your business by adopting security strategies such as:
- Conducting regular security assessments to identify areas of weakness and opportunities for growth in data protection.
- Monitoring your networks and software 24/7 to detect suspicious behavior or unauthorized system changes and remediate vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them.
- Creating an incident response plan to quickly contain and mitigate security breaches before they spread and cause further damage.
- Committing to ongoing employee training to help them understand the risks and threats of handling customer data.
All of these security measures are critical to helping your organization combat the growing risks of cyber attacks.
Debunking Common Retail Cybersecurity Misconceptions
Keeping your customer data safe in a constantly shifting cyber threat landscape is no easy task. Start by avoiding these five common mistakes retailers can make.4
Underestimating the Importance of Security Until After a Breach
Most retailers may not fully appreciate the importance of robust security measures until they experience a security incident. It’s often only after a breach that the full impact of inadequate security becomes evident. By then, it’s usually too late to prevent immediate damage, including financial losses, reputational harm, and legal consequences. Consider investing in proactive measures instead of reactive ones.
Taking Security Measures as a One-Time Exercise
Some retailers believe that once they’ve implemented security measures, their systems are protected indefinitely. The truth, however, is that security requires continuous monitoring, updating, and adapting to new threats. Cybercriminals constantly evolve their tactics, and security approaches that were effective yesterday may not be sufficient today.
Thinking Your Organization Is Too Small To Be Targeted
It’s a common misconception among many small and medium-sized retailers that cybercriminals only target large corporations. In reality, malicious actors target all business sizes, especially smaller retailers, because they tend to have weaker security measures. Smaller businesses may also serve as a gateway to larger, more lucrative targets through supply chain attacks.
Assuming Compliance Equals Security
Most retailers assume that meeting regulatory compliance standards is sufficient to ensure complete data security. While important, compliance is only the baseline. True data protection requires a proactive approach that goes beyond merely checking off compliance requirements.
Leaving Security Responsibilities To IT Departments Alone
It’s a widespread belief that data protection is an issue for the IT department to worry about. However, attackers infiltrate systems through employees who aren’t tech-savvy. As such, you should create awareness company-wide about security protocols and train your employees to recognize and respond to potential threats.
Identify and Address Vulnerabilities In Retail IT
Building a resilient security posture is an ongoing process. It requires regular evaluation of your business’s ability to manage vulnerabilities, handle cyber threats, and adapt security measures to evolving threats.
At Advizex, we can help you assess your retail technology for missing patches, unnecessary services, weak authentication and encryption, and application vulnerability. Then, we’ll recommend the ideal technologies to remediate security flaws.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you strengthen your retail security.
SOURCES:
1. 19 Common Cyberthreats To Retailers (And How To Defend Against Them). (August 2023) Forbes
2. The Devastating Business Impacts of a Cyber Breach. (May 2023) Harvard Business Review
3. Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024. (April 2024) IBM
4. Debunking The Top 5 Cybersecurity Myths. (August 2023) Forbes
