Cybercriminals can try and make a quick buck by committing shopping fraud in two main ways. They can either commit payment fraud, which uses a stolen credit card (stolen via the two methods described above, or via a data breach) to make a purchase.
Shopping season is a hacker’s paradise for those who are looking to take advantage of overwhelmed companies and websites. The shopping period, with a raft of sale discounts and other offers, often sees an increase in website attacks. And while retailers may know that they are under increased pressure, they may not have the resources to bulk up their cybersecurity defences given their priority on customer service, shipping, and other necessary prerequisites.
It is thus important to shed light on the most common types of threats that retailers face during the shopping season and also offer some recommendations on how to stay secure and safe.
Retail Cybersecurity Challenges and Threats
Threat 1: Payment skimmers
Knowing that traffic and transactions are at an all-time high during busy shopping seasons, hackers seek to steal valuable payment data from unwitting customers and retailers alike. This can be done by compromising physical POS systems with malware. If retailers are using any legacy POS systems or haven’t updated them in a while, the devices may be vulnerable to known exploits.
With PoS systems and terminals likely to be inundated with a surge in customers, hackers know that this would be prime time…
