Take A Holistic Approach To Security

By Deb Dixson, Ingenico, North America

Security is a topic that consumes a lot of energy inside and outside of most companies. Even its meaning varies greatly from person to person and company to company. Security used to be synonymous with physical security (e.g. Can we stop fraud and shoplifting?). As such, security was the responsibility of the loss prevention (LP) team. Technology was easy to control because retailers had a limited ability to access systems, and typically, people needed to be physically on-site to make system modifications. The profile of a hacker was that of a nerd with limited social skills, hacking only to earn the badge of honor that came with proving he had outsmarted corporate security systems. Companies considered the value of the various physical assets and inventory to quantify a loss. Internal teams and business units, who rarely talked to each other, handled what appeared to be disconnected and nonintersecting aspects of security. Fast forward to the present, and it is easy to see that a lot has changed!