A recent report has revealed that 50% of US retailers have suffered from a data breach so far in 2018. Last year, data breaches were on the decline, with only 19% of retailers affected. This increase puts retail ahead of healthcare, and only slightly behind the US federal government in number of data breaches. The survey also revealed that 95% of retailers will use a cloud service for sensitive data, but half of the respondents do not believe that there are proper security measures in place. Retailers are increasing security spending, with 84% saying that plans are in place to increase IT spending, with 28% reporting that the spending will be “significant.” However, most of the spending will go to endpoint or mobile defenses, despite the belief that increased encryption would be of better use. Analysts say that the newer digital transformation offer many benefits to businesses, but also provides a much bigger attack platform for hackers. “This year’s significant increase in data breach rates should be a wakeup call for all retail organizations. Digital transformation is well underway and the business benefits of the cloud, big data, IoT and mobile payment technologies are compelling and fueling widespread adoption. However, with the flow of sensitive data through all of these disparate platforms and technologies, the attack surface increases exponentially and with it the risk of a data breach,” a senior analyst said.
