Chances are when you’re running your restaurant your first thought isn’t on security. You’re worried about countless other details that come with owning a business, but not taking the time to protect yourself and customers from a data breach is a real concern.
Criminals are beginning to target smaller businesses including bars and restaurants precisely because they have lax security when it comes to accepting payments.
We’re not talking about employees skimming credit card data. Instead, we’re referring to running your point-of-sale system and work computers through an unsecured network.
Your business processes hundreds of transactions daily and is legally responsible for protecting all the data that flows through your restaurant. Every card you swipe can be recovered by an ambitious criminal and leave you with thousands of dollars in fines to pay.
Since your business is at risk, here are some ways you should re-evaluate your network’s security.
You might assume that because your point-of-sale system requires an employee pin number to access, it’s safe from criminals, but that’s not the case.
If your point-of-sale system is running on wifi that is also available to your customers, you’re at risk of a data breach.
It’s easy for an expert to hack into a POS system through wifi or ethernet that gives anyone access.
Each IP address on a restaurant network can be used as an entry point for cybercriminals, and many basic network solutions cannot distinguish between “good” and “bad” traffic using your businesses internet.
What this means is if you’re not investing in segmenting your wifi for a secure internal network or a public external wifi, you’re putting every customer who swiped a credit or debit card at your establishment at risk.
One of the best ways to protect any information that passes through your business is to go beyond just running everything that touches sensitive data through a secure network.
Implementing a firewall can do a lot to protect your business. In fact, when it comes to PCI Compliance security standards, they strongly insist you have one in place to protect customer’s card information.
Having a strong firewall and using a virus protection software can prevent malicious criminals from gaining access to your point-of-sale system.
A lot of these things seem complex, but if you work with the right provider it’s easy. We provide enterprise-grade firewalls which allow for secure segmenting for multiple wifi networks as well as continual monitoring to make sure it’s updated and still secure.
Your business does need to focus on security, but you don’t have to do the groundwork all by yourself. Contact us if you're interested in protecting your businesses through your wifi.
