With the UK high street currently floundering amid falling consumer power and heightened import prices, the country’s retailers have happily followed the global trend of turning to digitalisation to improve their customer experience and find efficiency savings. However, these opportunities do not come without risks, and new analysis shows that the number of cyber breaches in retail more than doubled in 2018, resulting in disruption, reputational damage and significant financial losses.
In August 2018, health and beauty retailer Superdrug Stores admitted to a security breach that potentially compromised names, addresses, and in some cases, dates of birth and phone numbers of 20,000 customers. The hackers held the data ransom for an undisclosed sum, providing details of 386 customers to prove the validity of their claims, which Superdrug was able to verify.