Holiday shopping season is around the corner and people will be stretching their wallets to the maximum to buy gifts for their loved ones. This time of the year creates also more attraction for cyber-attacks and therefore retailers must pay extra attention on how they can protect their POS systems. These attacks can be designed to steal money from credit cards, debit cards or gift cards making malwares to make unauthorized charges. Sadly, the list of different types of malware is growing every year. A POS security failure, just like any security failure, can cost your company a fortune. According to the latest IBM report this year, the global average cost of a data breach is $3.26 million, and the average cost for each lost or stolen record containing sensitive and confidential information is $141. To make sure that this doesn’t happen to your company we have made a list of things you can do to prevent it:
Be PCI-Compliant
Being PCI compliant means that the vendor complies with the security standard defined by the
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (
PCI DSS), and PCI DSS is an information security standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes. Payment card data is very sensitive information. PCI DSS helps the vendors who offer card payment to maintain high security standard, and being compliant with it can also help vendors gain the trust from card holders. Vendors should be aware that card payment providers may have their own PCI compliance programmers, and should choose the service providers accordingly.
Use Strong Passwords
Usually POS system installers use the default passwords on initial setup and forget to change the passwords to something more secure. Using the default password, however, makes it easy for cyber criminals to obtain them. It is highly recommended to use more complex passwords and unique account names. What is more, it is advised to change passwords regularly as well.
Actively Monitoring Your POS Network
By actively monitoring your POS network for strange traffic patterns you are able to detect changes in user activity, files and unusual data transaction, etc., before cybercriminals steal your data for good. Do not let your guard down.
Reduce Insider Threats
Organize and carry out routine background checks on your employees and create policies for information security. Control who has access to your data and limit the users that can communicate with POS systems if necessary. Additionally, having individual user accounts for POS users help you to keep track of recent changes on your
POS activity and keep sensitive information secure.
Data Encryption
Businesses are far less exposed to the possibility of being attacked by cyber criminals if they use a POS that enables data encryption. This means that all passwords are encrypted on servers and databases. Taking all these recommendations into use, you can be sure that your company is far less likely to be affected by cyber criminals. In order to maximize protection, retailers should choose more technologically-advanced
Point of Sale systems. Investing money in a more advanced and secure POS system will benefit your company future-wise. With security off your high priority list, you can get back focusing on building a successful business.
