{"id":2068,"date":"2023-11-17T21:56:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T21:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/attacks-breaches\/comptia-advises-retailers-to-check-their-cybersecurity-preparedness-ahead-of-the-holiday-shopping-season"},"modified":"2023-11-17T21:56:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T21:56:00","slug":"comptia-advises-retailers-to-check-their-cybersecurity-preparedness-ahead-of-the-holiday-shopping-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2023\/11\/17\/comptia-advises-retailers-to-check-their-cybersecurity-preparedness-ahead-of-the-holiday-shopping-season\/","title":{"rendered":"CompTIA Advises Retailers to Check their Cybersecurity Preparedness Ahead of the Holiday Shopping Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/comptia-advises-retailers-to-check-their-cybersecurity-preparedness-ahead-of-the-holiday-shopping-season.jpg?w=640&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>PRESS RELEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><span><strong><\/strong><span><strong>DOWNERS GROVE, Ill.<\/strong><\/span><strong><\/strong><\/span><strong>,<\/strong><span><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><strong><\/strong><span><strong><\/strong><span><strong>Nov. 16, 2023<\/strong><\/span><strong><\/strong><\/span><strong><\/strong><span><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><strong>\/PRNewswire\/ &#8212;<\/strong> Retail businesses should make time in the coming days to assess their cybersecurity readiness ahead of the annual crush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers, according to<span>&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.comptia.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CompTIA<\/a>, the leading nonprofit association for the technology industry and workforce.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Proactive steps taken ahead of time to protect your assets is considerably easier than dealing with the aftermath of a security breach,&#8221; said<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>Randy Gross<\/span>, CompTIA&#8217;s chief information security officer.<\/p>\n<p>By one estimate, online spending in the U.S. is projected to surpass<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>$37 billion<\/span><span>&nbsp;<\/span>over Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and nearly<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>$222 billion<\/span><span>&nbsp;<\/span>for the entire holiday season.1<span>&nbsp;<\/span>That volume of digital transactions requires heightened adherence to best cybersecurity practices. In the short term,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Install all the latest security patches and software updates. Companies make these updates available when they discover bugs or security holes to close, so it&#8217;s a good practice to install them as soon as they are available.<\/li>\n<li>Take an inventory of your business&#8217;s networks. The widespread use of digital devices makes it easy to lose track of everything that&#8217;s connected to a network. If you find something that shouldn&#8217;t be there, block it or remove it from the network.<\/li>\n<li>Have a plan in place detailing responses and roles should a data breach or other disruptive event occur. This applies to businesses that have in-house IT teams and those that rely on a technology partner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Longer term, training all employees in the basics of cybersecurity is an essential preventative measure. Human error is the most frequent cause of a data breach, making anyone in your company who works with a digital device or data a potential point of vulnerability. For the IT staff, professional certifications are a proven difference-maker.<\/p>\n<p>Retailers are active in hiring cybersecurity professionals, listing 16,333 job postings for cybersecurity-related positions from<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>September 2022<\/span><span>&nbsp;<\/span>through<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>August 2023<\/span>.2<span>&nbsp;<\/span>Many other retail businesses, especially small and mid-sized establishments, rely on the expertise of managed service providers and managed security services providers for their cybersecurity needs.<\/p>\n<p>While the odds of being a target of a cyberattack may be variable, the aftershocks of a data breach are certain. Two-thirds of companies that recognized the occurrence of a cybersecurity incident in the past year said the incident had a severe or moderate impact on the organization, according to CompTIA&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.comptia.org\/content\/research\/cybersecurity-trends-research\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">State of Cybersecurity 2024<\/a>&#8221; report. The cost of mitigating a cyber incident, normalized across company size, is<span>&nbsp;<\/span><span>$1 million<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That may be a negligible impact for a large company, but for a small business, it could be fatal,&#8221; Gross said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>About CompTIA<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span>The Computing Technology Industry Association (<\/span>CompTIA<span>) is the world&#8217;s leading information technology (IT) certification and training body.<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/span>CompTIA<span><span>&nbsp;<\/span>is a mission-driven organization committed to unlocking the potential of every student, career changer or professional seeking to begin or advance in a technology career. Each year<span>&nbsp;<\/span><\/span>CompTIA<span>, directly and through its global network of partners, provides millions of people with training, education and certification. To learn more <\/span>visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.comptia.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.comptia.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.darkreading.com\/attacks-breaches\/comptia-advises-retailers-to-check-their-cybersecurity-preparedness-ahead-of-the-holiday-shopping-season\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PRESS RELEASE DOWNERS GROVE, Ill.,&nbsp;Nov. 16, 2023&nbsp;\/PRNewswire\/ &#8212; Retail businesses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-2068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dark-reading"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","chromenews-featured":"","chromenews-large":"","chromenews-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"Dark Reading","author_link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/author\/darkreading\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/category\/uncategorized\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}