Retail Security.

When you hear those two words, what does it mean to you? Does it mean product theft, does it mean employee theft, and does it mean cybercrime? When I hear the words Retail Security, it means all of the above and so much more.

There are thousands of crimes a retailer needs to be protected against. I am going to say this, and I know it will not be popular: many retailers are not well versed in protection. Usually, this is not their fault. Most retailers are running on extremely tight budgets, and have a hundred different things to do at any given time, because of this, security tends to fall to the bottom of the to-do list. Sadly, in today’s digital world, Security needs to be the first thing that they address!

The statistics are staggering. I am going to assume that every retailer knows they should have cameras in their establishments focused on shoppers, and on employees. Cameras are a great tool, but most retailers still put too much trust in their employees.

Strong Network Security passwords and strong Point of Sale passwords need to be set up and used to avoid issues. All too often, we see default administrator passwords in use on Networks and Point of sale systems. When this happens, it is clearly a violation of the payment card industry (PCI) standards and creates a huge vulnerability for the retail owner.

What happens when you have a data breach? The statistics are staggering.

The following information is extracted from the 2018 Cost of Data Breach Study: Impact of Business Continuity Management. Benchmark research sponsored by IBM Independently conducted by Ponemon Institute LLC

“It makes sense that the more records lost the higher the cost of data breach. Therefore, data classification schema and retention programs are critical to having visibility into the sensitive and confidential information that is vulnerable to a breach and reducing the volume of such information.

The faster the data breach can be identified and contained, the lower the costs. In this year’s study, organizations experienced an increase in the number of days to identify the data breach from an average of approximately 191 in 2017 to 197 days. The average days to contain the data breach increased from 66 to 69 days. We attribute the increase in days to the growth in the use of IoT devices, extensive use of mobile platforms, and increased migration to the cloud and compliance failures.”

From a recent Retail Dive Article:

  • U.S. retailers lead the world in security breaches, according to the 2018 Thales Data Threat Report, Retail Edition. U.S. retail data breaches more than doubled since the last Thales report, rising to 50% from 19% in the 2017 survey. The global average of retail executives reporting data breaches is 27%.
  • Additionally, the number of U.S. retailers reporting a data breach at any time in the past is up to 75% with half of those occurring in the last year. Of global retailers, 60% report at least one breach in the past. As a result, U.S. retail is now the second most breached segment analyzed by Thales, trailing the U.S. federal government only slightly and ranking ahead of healthcare and financial services.
  • While 84% of the U.S. retailers polled are increasing information technology security spending, which is up from last year’s 77% and exceeds global retail’s 67%, the Thales report said that the spending is “in all the wrong places.” The spending is highest on security measures regarded as least effective.

Those are just some of the staggering statistics.

Security in your store and deployed on your retail systems should be the number one priority for every retailer. For the big retailers, the breaches they suffer will cost them millions and damage the retailers’ reputation. For small to mid-sized retailers, the cost could be even more devastating, bringing their business to its knees and possibly costing them everything.

What can you do? Well, you can do nothing and wait for a breach to happen (obviously not a good strategy) or you can hire a company that has the experience and expertise to provide you with a comprehensive security strategy.

One Step Secure IT Services has the experience and ability to install a Data Breach Protection plan, and so much more. 
Contact Us Today!