Special Report: Retail Data Security

By The Business Solutions Network

As the number of payment- and POS-related breaches continues to rise, retail IT VARs should be stepping up to help.

By now, everyone who does business in the retail vertical should be well aware of the serious nature of data breaches that have occurred and continue to occur. However, being aware of the problem and taking steps to fix it appear to be two different things. A recent survey of Business Solutions’ VAR and ISV readers showed that approximately 45 percent of solutions providers offer no PCI- or security-related services to their retail customers. There are a few reasons for this. Many VARs believe that security is outside of their core competency. Because they’ve not taken the time and spent resources to make it a competency, security regulations like the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS) are overwhelming and something an uneducated VAR will avoid. To be fair, payment security does seem like a moving target and something some VARs may have given up chasing. However, waiting for things to settle or for there to be clarity is unrealistic. Security is an ongoing journey, not a destination.