Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Why the Retail Industry Requires Enhanced Cybersecurity Protection

While Cybersecurity is a Cross-industry Need, Learn Why the Retail Sector Needs Special Attention

By: Sentia   Categories:Blog, Security, Cyber Security, Data Security

Why the Retail Industry Requires Enhanced Cybersecurity Protection

Cybercrime has increased exponentially worldwide, mostly due to significant events that lead to a rapidly changing threat landscape. Most nations have seen increased cyber threats across sectors due to significant incidents ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, with the retail industry bearing the brunt of the attacks. In Canada, for instance, at least three out of ten companies have reported a spike in attacks, and 80% of businesses fell victim to phishing attacks. Also, 25% of Canadian organizations have reported data breaches that target sensitive employee and customer data.

In addition, Canadian organizations in the retail industry have suffered numerous attacks in the recent past. For example, JBS, one of the largest global, suffered a devastating ransomware attack in 2021 that saw it shut down operations in Canada, the US, and Australia, resulting in a loss of more than $11 million. Also, an unauthorized party compromised the user credentials of the Canada Revenue Agency, resulting in more than 800,000 taxpayers being unable to access their accounts. Whether you look at cybersecurity in Montreal, Toronto, or any other Canadian city, the statistics show that cybercrime is getting worse, and the retail industry suffers innumerable damage.


Why Cybersecurity for Retail Organizations Matter

In 2022, cybersecurity experts forecast that cybercrime will cost organizations in the retail industry more than $5.4 million. The huge financial losses are due to the adverse impacts of cyberattacks, including prolonged system and network downtime, lost business opportunities, compliance penalties, costs incurred in legal tussles, and costs related to mitigating cyber-attacks. In addition, threats like ransomware attacks, which affected 39% of Canadian businesses in 2021, can cause an organization to incur huge financial losses that can force it to shut down its operations.

Moreover, with Canadian companies requiring at least $1.92 million to mitigate an adverse cyber incident, the retail sector’s essence of state-of-the-art cybersecurity measures cannot be underscored. Inadequate cybersecurity personnel and lack of access to advanced information security measures have seen some of the most notable entities in the Canadian retail sector suffer large attacks. The following are some of the incidents warranting enhanced cyber protection for the retail industry:

Canada Post: A cyber-attack targeted a third-party business partner of Canada Post, leading to more than 950,000 postal addresses being compromised. The attack also compromised most parcel recipients’ home addresses and names, whereas 3% of the cases saw the attackers breach customer phone numbers and email addresses.

FortisOntario and Cornwall Electric: FortisOntario, the parent company of Cornwall Electric, announced that it was a victim of a ransomware attack in March 2021. The ransomware attack occurred when hackers targeted a third-party contractor responsible for billing. Although the company was not aware of any data breach incidents, the attack could have compromised many customers’ accounts.

How You Can Protect Yourself
Organizations in the retail industry are increasingly becoming targets of various attacks since they collect, hold, and process large amounts of highly sensitive information like credit card data. Although cyber threats increase daily, cybercriminals are not showing any signs of abating as they leverage sophisticated tools and an ever-expanding set of techniques. The retail industry’s most common threats include man-in-the-middle attacks, denial of service attacks, data breaches, and third-party hacks. Canada is one of the largest targets of attacks targeting retailers, and the following countermeasures can help enhance the sector’s security posture.

a.Robust Access Controls
Businesses in the retail sector require enhanced access controls to limit what third parties and employees can access. For example, hackers can target third-party suppliers to compromise a retailer’s mission-critical networks and sensitive customer information. Implementing strong access controls tightens access to critical infrastructure and data, increasing information and network security. In addition, employees and business partners should only have access to the resources needed to complete their tasks. At the same time, access controls like multi-factor authentication can help prevent unwanted access to customer data.

b.Secure All Endpoints
Most retailers have embraced Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies which have seen an uptake of IoT devices and endpoints. These devices often improve operational visibility and enable retailers to be more resilient and flexible. On the other hand, they introduce numerous security risks to retailers’ internal networks. One of the biggest risks is that attackers can compromise the endpoints and use them as gateways to retailers’ networks. Therefore, retailers must mitigate these risks by minimizing data collected or transmitted using the endpoints. More importantly, Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions provided by security companies like Cynet can provide extended protection to all endpoints connecting to retailers’ networks.

c.Maintain an Incident Continuity Plan
All retailers must develop and implement a continuity plan to ensure the recovery and continuity of all business operations after an attack has occurred. In Canada, a single ransomware incident can cost retailers $148,700 on average, but some cases may exceed one million dollars. The financial implication is very significant to ignore and requires retailers to have a reliable contingency plan. The first step to creating a continuity plan is hiring a professional to analyze your IT environment to determine systems and data critical to business continuity. Then, you must create multiple backups of the mission-critical systems to ensure availability. Restoring the backups once an adverse cyber event has struck can support the continuity of essential business operations.

How Sentia can Help
Sentia provides advanced business continuity services, such as modern data protection solutions and Disaster Recovery as a Service to cushion retailers from unexpected incidents like attacks and natural disasters. Furthermore, digital networks have become essential to retailers, and Sentia guarantees strong network security through services like secure managed networking and next-generation network firewalls. Also, cyber threats will continue increasing, but the good news is that Sentia excels in cybersecurity for retailers through our cybersecurity services, including enterprise network security, compliance consulting, cybersecurity consulting, and managed security services. In addition, sentia has partnered with Cynet’s XDR solutions to ensure adequate monitoring and real-time identification of threats plaguing your networks and endpoints. Contact us to enhance your cybersecurity posture.

Sentia
Sentia

Sentia

We are a high-value, trusted, Canadian IT solutions provider dedicated to delivering secure and reliable IT solutions across a wide variety of industries. We are committed to helping our customers meet and optimize their business goals.

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