Retailers are investing millions in the latest technologies to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors, but without a fast, robust and more importantly secure network infrastructure this investment could be at risk, especially if your customer and corporate data are not adequately protected. You could be putting your customers and your business at serious risk with major monetary and reputational losses.
Retail Network Security Challenges
Business Requirement: Store wireless connectivity – guest and corporate access
Challenge: Providing a secure, robust and high-speed infrastructure platform
The retail industry is under pressure to find ways of improving the customer experience and promoting increased customer loyalty while protecting or improving profit margins. In-store technology, particularly wireless connectivity, is a key enabler for these initiatives be it with handheld scanners for stock checking, equipping staff with tablets devices to improve customer engagement or deploying retail analytics to better understand consumer behaviour. Wireless technology is a significant factor in reducing waste, cutting reporting time and improving customer retention, all of which lead to increased profit. Most retailers now provide free customer access to the internet via the in-store wireless network but need to understand how to secure and segregate the corporate “head office” traffic from the guest “internet breakout” traffic without slowing down the network or creating a complex authentication process.
Business Requirement: Multi-sited network connectivity
Challenge: Secure in-store networks and network connectivity linking all sites to head office are critical to business operating processes.
With an increasing number of endpoints and applications and higher volumes of data, the network must be able to support the performance demands being placed on it. Devices, users and applications need to connect to the network by whatever access method is most convenient and best meets their requirements. Ensuring an excellent experience for both corporate and guest users, providing them with a range of high performance secure connected services while being able to scale and manage security solutions from kiosk to superstore. Security must be at the centre of any network design, without a strong and effective security solution against today’s ever-changing threat landscape the entire network, and therefore your businesses reputation will be at risk!
Business Requirement: Customer data protection
Challenge: If the network is breached, sensitive customer data can be compromised with serious consequences to the business.
Whilst wireless technology provides the flexibility to enable key initiatives, if not secured correctly it is also an expedient entry point for any cyber-criminal. To address this issue, retailers’ enterprise class wireless solution, giving the in-store wireless network the same level of security as the wired network. Device and user identification with authentication must be the same regardless of the connection technology. Network access, based on successful identification and authentication, must allow customers, as guests, to access only the Internet or other predefined sites. Be under no illusion, if you have a data breach under the revised General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into full force in May 2018 you risk a penalty of up to 10 million euros of 2% of your global annual turnover, whichever is greater.
Contact us to discuss your security concerns with one of our consultants.
Retail Network Security Solutions – ISG Technology will be delighted to discuss the best solution for your business.
Retail Network Security: Are your customers and your business safe?
