Is Your Business at Risk for a Data Breach?

By Tami Cohorst

2014 was dubbed "Year of the Data Breach"– affecting such major brands as Target, Home Depot, Jimmy John's, and more. A data breach occurs when an outsider obtains customer information, putting customers at risk for fraudulent charges and identity theft. It can also threaten the reputation of a business.

There are useful practices and various steps a business can take to prevent such breaches that includes avoiding these five bad habits:

Bad habit #1: Sticking with old, familiar technology

It is important for businesses to keep up with technology. They must upgrade security in addition to the ways they process payments. While it can be expensive to move to the newest methods, it makes customer information much more secure. The thieves who want to access your customer's information will also be trying to keep up with the latest technology, so why shouldn't your business stay one step ahead?

Target is an example of a major company that had a data breach due to outdated technology. To prevent a breach from occurring in the future, the company has begun to implement a technology to be able to process mobile payments.

Bad habit #2: Using the same POS system across all stores

Business owners can be tempted to go with what they know, especially if their business is a chain. As they become familiar with certain technologies, they tend to use the same technology in their other stores. This habit, however, should be changed. Businesses need to have different computer systems for franchise stores, especially with regard to POS systems.

Jimmy John's stores were the victims of a major data breach because many of the company's POS systems were the same. The perpetrators of the data breach were able to clone payments once they figured out how the POS systems worked. If the chain had set up different POS systems at different locations, the data breach may not have occurred.

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Bad habit #3: Not updating encryption

Encryption of information is the most important way to protect your customers. Encryption scrambles customer data, such as credit card numbers, and makes data unreadable. That way, in the event of a data breach, the information obtained is useless.

Home Depot was hit with a data breach that originated from malware. Home Depot's security system could not protect against the malware due to how new it was; but, updated encryption software would have made the data unusable to those who created the malware.

Bad habit #4: Insecure employee login information

Employers must give employees access to computer systems and data in order to do their jobs; however, it's easy to become complacent with employee login information. Employee passwords are often easy to guess and employee credentials aren't always deactivated when an employee leaves. Business owners need to pay better attention. Employee passwords should be complex and changed every few months, and credentials must be deactivated whenever an employee leaves.

eBay's data breach occurred because the thieves used employee login information. It is not clear how the hackers had access to employee credentials, but if the employee credentials had been more secure, the data breach might have been prevented.

Bad habit #5: Failure to watch computer systems

Businesses must regularly watch computer systems, especially POS systems, for signs of a potential security issue. They should look for any irregular transactions or payments. They should check the system for malware and viruses. It's easy to trust security, but vigilance will prevent a data breach from going unnoticed.

In the case of the Neiman Marcus data breach, the retailer failed to check its systems. Not only did the data breach occur, but it went unnoticed for months with malware being on the POS systems. It is vital that businesses scan for malware and harmful programs on a regular basis.

About the Author

Post by: Tami Cohorst

Tami Cohorst is vice president at Abtek, a state-of-the-art credit card processing and merchant account solutions provider. As a credit card expert, Tami enables businesses, big and small, to accept and process credit cards, and she delivers customized processing solutions to fit a business's evolving needs. She also brings a world of expertise to issues like Apple Pay, data breaches, chargebacks, and other payment processing trends.

Company: Abtek

Website: www.abtek.com

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