Is Your POS System Security Lacking?
Security at the Point of Sale is important for several reasons. Any retail customer wants to know that their information is secure and that there won’t be ID and credit card theft. Any retail business wants to know that they will not have to worry about these things, too. It’s difficult to recover from the reputation damage of a breach in security at your POS.
In “RSA 2015: Point-of-sale system security is lacking”, SC Magazine’s Adam Greenberg reports on a session at the RSA Conference 2015 in San Francisco. The takeaway is simple: most point of sale systems security breaches are easily preventable things. Remote administration is often blamed, but when remote administration is used as an alternative to active monitoring, the result is poor security practices. For example:
- poor physical security can give attackers direct access to the system through bad locks and easy access to ports
- lack of updated antivirus software allows new virus attacks
- symmetric encryption is easier to decipher than asymmetric encryption
- use of default passwords — for example, one vendor’s default password has been the same since 1990 and the vast majority of users (90%) still use the default
Be Proactive With Point of Sale Systems Security
There are many benefits in utilizing an integrated software with a POS component, but the user needs to be proactive with security. The professional support ChainDrive retail point of sale software offers clients includes the ability to ask for help with areas of concern. Other ways to stay ahead of threats include:
- changing passwords regularly
- training staff in security procedures
- looking for malware signatures
- not storing payment card data on registers
- enforcing strong authentication policies
- not running POS systems as administrator
- keeping systems patched and antivirus signatures current
The benefits of a good Point of Sale Software solution are worth the effort it takes to keep POS systems secure. In today’s retail climate, security is part of the way we must do business no matter which software is used. Choosing POS software that comes with consistent professional support makes the task easier because advice will be available no matter what the future holds.
