With the pandemic, inflation, supply chain issues, rising crime, competition, slowdowns, and much more going on, retailers are dealing with security issues like never before.

There’s some good news though – cybersecurity doesn’t have to pile on to these threats. In fact, security can be something that improves the enterprise and enhances the customer experience.

We traveled to Cleveland, Ohio in late June to share with hundreds of retail attendees how Google+Dito’s solutions can make their cybersecurity the safest part of doing business.

At the National Retail Federation PROTECT Conference and Expo, we learned…

It is crucial we build stronger connections between tech, business, and the boardroom. Cybersecurity is a team effort. Yet there are silos between the CISO and the C-suite and Board of Directors. A gap exists between security and the business.

The risk of an attack rises as our systems’ interdependencies grow more and more complex. Many of the breaches we see are still preventable with sound cyber practices and strong controls. Converting data into value, securely and ethically, is the business imperative for the next decade.

Retail giant Target has proven that cybersecurity can act as a business enabler. The last few years have seen expanding scope and sophistication of in-house cybersecurity systems as companies undergo radical digital transformation.

Target has formed an industry-leading cybersecurity approach. They rely on experts from different backgrounds and advanced capabilities that evolve alongside changing threats. Recently, Target blended their cybersecurity and fraud functions to take a more unified approach to addressing retail risk. This ultimately protects their customers and the business. 

One of our favorite sessions we attended was with one of our customers, and sponsors of the conference, Palo Alto Networks.

In a conversation with Casey’s General Stores, they touched on the latest digital trends in retail, top cybersecurity threats impacting retailers today, and discussed some of the various technologies they are leveraging to become market leaders – including AI/Machine Learning, cloud security platforms, and centralized management.

The biggest takeaway was the fact that it’s absolutely critical for retailers in today’s environment to deploy an architecture that scales and is cloud ready.

At the end of the day, your store and products may be safe – but what about your most important asset – your data? It’s more crucial than ever before that your entire organization’s environment is secure from bad actors – not just your physical locations, but your digital infrastructure. In the current age of e-commerce, a data breach can lead to disaster.

When Dito approaches security, we take into consideration four major factors:

• Internal threats – are your employees following security best practices when it comes to their devices? With a lot of organizations working remotely, or in some form of hybrid environment, teams may be using a variety of devices, on a variety of internet connections, from a range of locations. By ensuring your users are protected and secured from start to finish, you can rest assured a lost laptop, compromised password, or personal breach doesn’t affect your entire organization.

• External threats – phishing attempts, malware, scammers, and other bad actors are more abundant than ever. The last thing your organization needs is an external influence gaining access to sensitive customer & organization data. We take a holistic approach from start to finish to secure and provide best practices for your organization’s infrastructure – utilizing zero-trust concepts combined with Google’s fortified cloud platform.

• Reputation – if an attempt on breaching your company’s environment does happen to succeed, do you have a plan to immediately secure and lock down the rest of your organization? When it comes to reputation, we’ve seen time and time again that a data breach can lead to massive losses. Customers feel less comfortable using your website or swiping a credit card at your location. We ensure your reputation stays intact, and even gains credibility in trust, by ensuring you have a process in place for handling potential breaches.

• Regulation – we all know there are plenty of regulatory items in place that your organization has to adhere to. In order to process payments online or in-store, you have to make sure your system is compliant with current regulations. Dito has the experience and regulatory/compliance expertise to make sure you are prepared to meet and go beyond current regulations.

The Dito Team would like to thank all those involved in making the 2022 NRF Protect event a success and we can’t wait for NRF 2023! You can see us in our snappy coveralls at the Global Security Exchange (GSX) coming up in September.