Cybersecurity & Retail: Keeping Your Customers’ Data Safe

For small, digitally native businesses, adapting new cybersecurity measures is crucial in the age of new retail. The change to a predominantly e-commerce environment means that brands are even more susceptible to hackers, since retailers are processing and storing even more sensitive data. In an unfortunate statistic, 24% of all 2020 cyber-attacks were targeting retailers. So how can businesses shield themselves from breaches?

Osa Solutions

Osa CTO, Shlomi Amouyal offers a few different solutions, with the overarching advice that omnichannel retailers should not, under any circumstances, store customers’ credit card information in their company database. “Today there are several ways to achieve maximum security: Convert the payment method to an encrypted token, which allows consumers to buy products without navigating traditional financial institutions. Brands should use a PCI- compliant solution like Stripe that allows retailers to manage payment information for their customers without saving the info in the company database. It is crucial for brands to use secure forms and appropriate form fields for collecting card data.”

Amouyal also suggests synchronizing data with a reliable back-up service or using public cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and GCE, since ecommerce transactions occur in real-time. 

But what if a retailer’s online business is hacked? Once the security breach is identified, Amouyal suggests taking the following measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. 

1. Replace all admin access passwords
2. Trigger replace password to your customers 
3. Perform a security audit on all affected accounts
4. Hire a cybersecurity company to assess the level of exposure and help if the crisis needs to be managed beyond the hacking event itself
5. Update software and reset configuration settings
6. Download an offline backup of data

Beyond individual online businesses, supply chain software is also highly susceptible to hacking. However, Zero Trust Network Access Technology (ZTNA) is gaining momentum; this tool automatically deploys firewalls and segmentation gateways to prevent an attack. Blockchain technology is also a huge aid in fighting against data theft, since it operates within a network of highly secure codes. 

Ensuring that there are no security breaches is no small job. But as brands get savvier and more informed about navigating their online businesses, retailer cyber attacks will hopefully become a thing of the past, and customers can rest assured that their data is safe. 

About Shlomi Amouyal, Osa CTO

Shlomi is a systems architect specializing in cybersecurity, blockchain, and enterprise technologies with 15 years of experience leading and implementing technology innovations across sectors. After getting his start in the Israeli Army’s special unit, Shlomi emerged as an expert in the development and maintenance of national infrastructures. Running his own technology companies for over a decade, Shlomi worked on over one hundred global enterprise projects, focusing on operational technology and cloud infrastructure.