In this 7 Minutes on ITSPmagazine Short Brand Story episode, Sean Martin and Theresa Lanowitz explore the critical challenges and innovative solutions in achieving cyber resilience within the retail sector, just in time for the holiday shopping season. Learn how retail organizations can enhance their cybersecurity strategies to protect business assets and improve operational efficiency amidst evolving threats.
Retailers today continue to grapple with unforeseen issues as supply chain attacks become more common and vulnerabilities from third-party sources emerge as major threats.
Of the 1,050 C-suite and senior executives surveyed, 86% of respondents anticipate that dynamic computing will enhance operational performance within the next three years, especially in AI strategy development and leveraging sophisticated supply chains. However, 82% acknowledge the increased exposure to risk.
In this age of dynamic computing, retail organizations encounter both significant opportunities and risks. With traditional security boundaries fading and conventional security measures proving inadequate, retail leaders must adopt a comprehensive approach to ensure overall cyber resilience.
To better achieve cyber resilience in the retail industry, LevelBlue shares five specific steps that can be applied across industries, directly in response to these findings: identify the barriers to cyber resilience; be secure by design; align cyber investment with business; build a support ecosystem; and transform cybersecurity strategies.
To learn more, download the complete findings of the 2024 LevelBlue Futures Report: Cyber Resilience in Retail here:
Learn more about LevelBlue: https://itspm.ag/levelblue266f6c
Note: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.
Guest: Theresa Lanowitz, Chief Evangelist of AT&T Cybersecurity / LevelBlue [@LevelBlueCyber]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/theresalanowitz/
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LevelBlue Futures Report: Cyber Resilience in Retail | 7 Minutes on ITSPmagazine | A LevelBlue Short Brand Innovation Story with Theresa Lanowitz
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00]
Sean Martin: And here we are ready for another seven minutes on ITSP magazine with a new short brand story. Today, I'm joined by Teresa Lennon with chief evangelist at Level Blue, the organization that simplifies securing the most valuable business assets by providing broad cybersecurity experience and award winning services.
Welcome Teresa.
Theresa Lanowitz: Thanks Sean. It's so nice to be here with you.
Sean Martin: It's always good to have you on the show and great to chat with you. And a topic that I love. We've, we've talked about, uh, Cyber and business resilience is part of your level blue futures report. And today, just in time for the holidays, we're gonna be looking at some, uh, some of what challenges and opportunities the retail space has with week with respect to becoming cyber resilient.
Um, give me some ideas of what you found in the research you've done that are specific to the retail space with respect to challenges that they're facing these days.
Theresa Lanowitz: The interesting thing is that we're in a profound era of innovation across the board. Every [00:01:00] type of industry is innovating, and that's no different in retail.
And what retail organizations are really grappling with right now are attacks on the supply chain. That can be the software supply chain or the physical supply chain vulnerabilities coming in from working with third parties and retailers have to make sure that they're taking these threats that they're, that are coming in through possibly attacks on the supply chain or vulnerabilities coming in from, Other types of software that they're bringing in from suppliers and so on.
And they have to really make sure that they're able to be resilient. And that means it needs to be a whole business practice to be resilient, the entire organization, not just a cybersecurity team, because these types of threats, these types of problems. Ripple across the entire organization. So when something happens that, and that entire IT estate may not be available, other parts of the organization, in addition to the cybersecurity team, needs to step up.
That includes the CIO organization, possibly finance, [00:02:00] possibly other suppliers, and so on.
Sean Martin: So I know that innovation in, in retail, I mean, these companies want to provide the most experience, the best experience possible to their, to their customers, both online and in, in, in store.
And, but with that, we were collecting more data, providing access to more services and things like that. And to your note, to your point, the risk increases. as we build out new services and provide new offerings. What are some of the outcomes that organizations, retail organizations are trying to achieve as they're making these innovations?
AI is another one that I think comes to mind often.
Theresa Lanowitz: Well, absolutely. And you mentioned that retail organizations want to provide the best possible outcomes for their customers, whether it's online or in a physical presence. And one of the things we found out in our research is that 86 percent of the retail organizations that we surveyed, they said You know what, we, we think that this new [00:03:00] type of computing, this innovation that we're bringing about, think about self checkout, the ease with which you can scan things now at checkout, uh, the, the best e tail experiences that we have, 86 percent said that that can really help with operational efficiency and even for profitability, profitability.
Let's get that word correctly. Uh, but what they also said, 83 percent also told us. that what they're finding is that all of this innovation really increases the risk. So this is something that as an organization, an organization has to take a look at how this risk is being increased and how that cyber security team who typically has lived inside of silos and has been isolated from the rest of the business, how everything they're doing to mitigate risk and to prevent the risk.
The types of cyber attacks that we're concerned about how they can actually work with the line of business and how the line of business can work cross functionally with everybody in the organization to help achieve that real level [00:04:00] of cyber resilience. And then you mentioned some of the other types of technologies, new technologies, such as AI coming on the scene.
And AI is something that everybody is thinking about. Everybody's concerned with right now. And what we found out in our research that from a cybersecurity perspective, organizations are saying, we're taking a look at AI, but we're doing it in a very methodical way. And one of the nice things that we're seeing with AI in general is that Organizations are not afraid to embrace the technology.
They're bringing it in experimental ways. And from a cyber security perspective, that's no different. We're looking at things such as machine learning to be able to take massive amounts of data and do pattern matching things such as neural networks and deep learning to be able to do predictive types of analysis.
So the idea of A. I. Coming in, especially in retail, is very attractive. And that's what our survey participants told us as well.
Sean Martin: And, of course, there are a number of drivers to, uh, [00:05:00] to lead us to resiliency. Um, I think, what is it, 60, no, 74 percent have noted that regulation and compliance is a key driver there.
Um, but regardless of the driver, what, what are you seeing are some of the paths retailers are taking to actually achieve? What matters most to them be a compliance or or a good security posture for the business.
Theresa Lanowitz: Absolutely. To achieve cyber resilience. What we see retailers doing is one understanding the barriers looking across the organization, understanding what barriers exist to being secure by design, making sure that they're building security in from the very beginning, from the time of development, from the time of requirements, from the time of setting strategy.
So being secure by design. They're also bringing in. Trusted third party advisors to help them along the way. So building out that ecosystem, extending their team. And what they're doing is they're saying, we're looking at our cybersecurity strategy and we're making [00:06:00] sure that our cybersecurity goals are aligned with those critical few business objectives that the line of business is telling us about.
So cybersecurity team sitting in isolation and that's how you really make cyber resilience. That whole organizational issue. And then the last thing that we're seeing is that cybersecurity teams are really changing up their strategy, wanting to be more a part of this ongoing conversation across the organization about cyber resilience.
Sean Martin: And it is, uh, what's for the business. So the business should take part at every level. And, uh, that that's true for retail, but across, uh, all the sectors, I believe, uh, generally speaking as well. Which you've done some incredible research with the futures report. So, of course, we'll include a link to the retail edition of that report that we discussed here, as well as the broader research report and links to connect with you and the Level Blue team.
And I want to thank you, Teresa, for this chat, and that's seven minutes here on [00:07:00] ITSB Magazine.
Theresa Lanowitz: Thanks so much, John. Hope to see you again soon.
Sean Martin: Absolutely.