Whether you’re ready to admit it or not, the holiday shopping season is upon us. Take a minute and ask yourself: what kind of shopper am I? Do you tend to finish your gift-giving excursions back in August, or will you be spending the night before your holiday scrounging for last minute ideas? Regardless of which bucket you fall into, there are two upcoming days dedicated solely to shoppers of all kinds: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If waking up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday to fight other disgruntled parents over the latest toy craze doesn’t appeal to you, wait a few days after the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday and boot up your PC for Cyber Monday. It’s time to shop!

While many of you may be scared to check your bank account balances at the end of the season, put yourself in a retail shop’s shoes. The 2013 Target hack and 2014 Home Depot breach have both left retail stores of all shapes and sizes shaking in their boots – and with good reason! Hackers are not just becoming more persistent and frequent in their attacks, they are also getting more advanced on the attack methodology. What are these retailers left to do? Close up shop? No need to give up so easily; there are still lessons to be learned on how retailers can better protect their customers’ credit card and personal info safe from a potential breach.

A few things to consider when working towards a more secure environment for customer’s financial data:

• Know where your business is being conducted
• Locate data in transit

And most importantly:

• Have an encryption policy

Interested in learning more?

Check out our recently published eBook, “Five Observations of Retail Data Breaches: Why Include Encryption?”. Happy shopping!