By Nick East, Zynstra
If 2017 is to be remembered for anything it will surely be the dramatic
increase of data breaches and cyberattacks reported in the media. We all know
cyber criminals are using increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access
to company networks, just as we know how the impact of such an occurrence can
have devastating consequences on reputation, revenue and customer trust. It has
been suggested that the average cost of a data breach is $3.62 million,
according to research conducted by Ponemon Institute.
Protecting systems from complex and sophisticated data breaches is
difficult enough, but it is even harder within a distributed store IT environment,
such as those in nationwide retail chains or franchise businesses. Many of these retail organizations now need to process large
amounts of data at the edge — in the physical store where the need for
information relating to promotions, offers and stock inventory is required in
‘real time’.
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The Cyber Threat Is Real
What this means is that retailers are increasingly bearing the weight of
having to project not just their own data, but that of customers too. And it’s
a problem that is not going away. In fact, the incidence of attacks seems to be
on the rise.
Research by Zynstra has uncovered that retailers are now being hit
by a cyberattack on average twice a week — with 16% saying they now experience
an attack or attempted attack every day. Among retailers, the occurrence of
cyberattacks was found to be especially high in the grocery sector, with almost
twice as many (29%) respondents having to deal with attempted security breaches
every day, and 55% doing so every week. In other retail verticals, 65% of
respondents in the sports and outdoor sector said they responded once a week,
as did 49% of fashion retailers and 40% of department stores.
For modern retailers that have a distributed store network throughout
the country or internationally, there are many unique security challenges.
Changing consumer demands and increasingly stringent regulatory pressures are
both catalysts for change, and have forced distributed retail enterprises to
carefully consider how they protect themselves, and their data, moving forward.
What’s The Solution?
While the issue is a serious one, there are ways to mitigate risk; one
of the most effective tactics to ensure that infrastructure remains resilient
is to regularly apply security patches and updates.
Research from Verizon suggests that over 70% of security breaches
now come from not keeping systems up to date. In fact, the impact of last
year’s most infamous cyberattack, the WannaCry ransomware attack, could have
been mitigated if available patches had been installed.
However, when it comes to patching there is a complex supply chain that
needs to be built and maintained upstream of any deployed systems. In order to
reduce the risk of systems failing as a part of the patch process and make the
task manageable, production engineering methods, automation and rollback must
be at the heart of any viable current solution. Otherwise the risk of manual
error or omission becomes too great.
The Zynstra research highlights that work still needs to be done when it
comes to risk mitigation — only 55% of retailers currently apply security
upgrades and patches across their branch network weekly, and 77% once a month.
When it comes to backing up critical in-store data across their store network
though, the results are more encouraging, with 75% doing so once a week, and
46% doing it daily.
From an IT security point of view retailers will continue to face
challenges. Again, this is something reinforced in the research. Only 33% of
respondents said that they are very confident that their store network is
secure. In fact, they cited a few major concerns, including backup data not
being restored quickly enough in the event of a cyber event (37%), and patches
and upgrades not being applied in a timely manner (22%).
Conclusion
As a result of operating in such a challenging landscape, retailers need
to consider a new approach, one that takes the load off IT teams and increases
cyber resilience, through the intelligent automation of processes required to
keep branches secure. The solution lies in having a centrally managed secure
platform to achieve this level of automation. In addition, it is important that
IT in the store is not the weak point in the front line. Rather, it should form
part of the retailer’s cyber security strategy alongside securing head office
and the data center.
Nick East is
co-founder and CEO of Zynstra, the award-winning leader
in automated branch IT solutions. Zynstra is reinventing the way distributed
multi-site organizations and SMBs buy and manage their IT infrastructure, and
offers new opportunities to IT service providers to build value into their
business. Following extensive cooperative development, Zynstra software is an
integral part of a new family of HPE servers: the Proliant Easy Connect EC200A.
East was previously part of Cramer from startup through to its $425 million
acquisition by Amdocs, where he was subsequently GM of their OSS division.
