Sponsored by Fortalice
As this holiday season approaches, are you ready to stand with your IT security counterparts and protect the brand? How many of you have a working relationship with your IT security department? Do you collaborate on “like” issues, share information, or sit at the table together to strategize and defend your company from both physical and digital threats? Do you discuss and assist in finding the right partners to protect your brand integrity? If not, you should. You are the original brand protectors.
As companies invest in more and more technology and your more technologically savvy new hires enter your organizations in every department, you will need to understand these skills like never before. Many of you are and will be required to become system-savvy and develop an aptitude in data analysis to identify criminal activities that are constantly evolving online. Cyber crime is a real threat to you and your business and not so unlike the threats from a physical standpoint.
Threats around skimming, phishing, vishing (voice phishing), gift card fraud, social engineering threats, ransomware, return fraud, stolen credentials, password changing, e-commerce fraud, employee training and retention, vendor fraud, and even various security regulations all have both a physical and digital component. Since you are already accustomed to criminal activity around these types of threats, your added skills, including your keen investigations abilities, are a bonus, but you must invest in learnings in this arena. Did you know that cyber crime will more than triple the number of job openings to 3.5 million unfilled cyber-security positions by 2021, and the cyber-security unemployment rate will remain at zero percent?
The state of retail cyber security is truly all over the board. Some retailers are more secure than others, but the attacks keep coming from all angles. Every forty seconds a business falls victim to a ransomware attack, and more than 90 percent of successful hacks and data breaches stem from phishing, emails crafted to lure their recipients to click a link, open a document, or forward information to someone they shouldn’t. In addition, phishing attacks with malware links are one of the easiest and most common ways for hackers to compromise social media platforms. The abuse of point-of-sale terminals is taking on new forms, from manipulation of devices to the fraudulent acquisition of new terminals. It’s an ever-evolving, persistent assault, and retailers can’t rely solely on a regulatory compliance or checklist approach.
Having a trusted and creative third-party company like Fortalice Solutions on your team can often be invaluable, especially in the event of an incident or an over-capacity or resource-gap situation. Fortalice is a boutique “white glove” cyber-security professional services firm with an innovative and experienced team who are focused on protecting people and businesses while mitigating exposure to cyber criminals and activities. We do not rest on the typical regulatory compliance checkbox approach. Instead, we understand that each individual retailer is unique and focus on the efficacy of security, making sure that the right controls are in place and that they are actually working to stop bad things from happening. At Fortalice, we are professional secret keepers and work diligently and creatively to help companies recover quickly if an incident occurs and get to the heart of the matter in an effort to protect our clients.
Our services include but are not limited to enterprise-wide cyber-risk assessments (CRA); red, blue, and purple team penetration testing; incidence response (IR), including preparing for and recovering after an incident; open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigations; merger and acquisition (M&A) due diligence; threat hunting and digital monitoring of VIPs and board members; social media account takeovers; highjacked devices; and various extortion demands.
Having the right team on the field is the best way to keep you and your company safe from the onslaught of all unwanted threats, and Fortalice Solutions is here to keep you and your business protected online. Visit fortalicesolutions.com or email Rhett Asher, executive vice president and director of retail solutions, at rhett [at] fortalicesolutions.com for more information.
