Luxury and fashion brands are increasingly becoming targets for hackers seeking to exploit the new cybersecurity risk landscape, which has been transformed by the increase in remote working, alongside the growth of the number of connected devices and the increased use of public cloud environments.
The challenge for Luxury and Fashion houses is that cyber threats evolve in response to attempts to tackle them, while digital innovation and e-commerce remain critical to the future of each industry business.
Addressing cyber risk becomes a central part of luxury fashion brands’ future success as a result – playing a vital role in ensuring digital assets enhance both the online and in-store shopping experience safely.
Getting to this point means being prepared for any possible breach, gaining access to the very latest expertise and intelligence on existing and emerging threats – which might appear on the deep and dark web – and treating cyber risk as a fundamental business issue.
Cybersecurity: Competitive advantage for Luxury and Fashion Houses
One of the most effective ways to guard against a possible cyber breach is to simulate an attack. Working with a team of ethical hackers can enable companies to identify vulnerabilities and address these before bad actors can exploit them.
These simulations also underline the scale of the challenge when it comes to defending against an attack, which powerfully motivates people to play their part in ongoing cyber risk programs.
These steps can help to create a culture of cybersecurity best practice within an organization. Within this framework, each new application or digital service would be fully assessed for potential cyber risks before development begins. This can also form the basis of developing key risk and performance indicators, which can be used for ongoing reporting. With these in place, it will also be possible to assess whether risk indicators are trending up or down and to communicate this level of exposure across the wider business. All of the above creates the conditions for ongoing proactivity, education and dialogue around cybersecurity.
Luxury and Fashion houses must adapt to the landscape
The evidence suggests that most luxury and fashion houses aren’t fully prepared to tackle the realities of the new level of cyber risk. Cybersecurity budgets haven’t been updated in line with the current landscape, the number of online customers they serve, or the volume of online transactions they must process.
The Luxury and Fashion sector, is particularly at risk within the new landscape as a hub of credit card payments and other financial transactions, making it a target for a wide range of threats, from domain spoofing to fake websites and bogus social media profiles.
The good news is that adapting in the face of evolving threats is what the cybersecurity industry does best. For Luxury and Fashion houses, working with the right partners and harnessing their knowledge, skills and experience will allow them to respond to the very latest threats in the continually shifting risk landscape.
This collaboration, combined with a proactive approach to earning consumer trust – and potentially even educating consumers on cyber risks – enables companies to defend against loss while simultaneously allowing them to become more profitable in the future, as a result of their enhanced reputation.
