Our traditional way of buying security has been reactive replacement shopping.
When we get breached, we buy an endpoint solution.
When PCI compliance comes up, we grab a firewall.
When customer data gets exposed, we bolt on encryption.
Then we configure each tool in isolation, ensure the registers still work, and call it a day.
Another issue with legacy retail security is everything developed in silos. The point-of-sale systems evolved separately from inventory management, which had nothing to do with e-commerce security. Each domain progressed independently, creating gaps that attackers love to exploit.
The problem with this legacy routine is that all the different pieces of our retail operation are acting individually, so we end up with fragmented security architecture. Each vendor promises their solution is the silver bullet, much like how each of us thinks our approach is the right one. This siloed mindset creates manual security processes, slow incident response, limited visibility across partners, and fails to keep pace with the threats targeting retail today.
This blog post will explore how bolt-on solutions and silos in retail networks slow business growth, and how you can pursue a holistic security solution for your network.
The Challenges of Retail Cybersecurity
Retail cybersecurity today feels like trying to secure a sprawling mall while it's being renovated, expanded, and having a Black Friday sale all at once. With 89% of retailers now juggling multicloud environments, we've created a patchwork of disconnected security controls – AWS talking to Azure, physical stores syncing with e-commerce platforms, seasonal workers getting rushed through onboarding, and IoT devices everywhere from smart cameras to inventory sensors.
Groups like UNC3944 exploit this operational complexity perfectly, using social engineering against our help desk teams who manage access across this distributed mess, then leveraging our own cloud infrastructure against us.
Meanwhile, we're trying to maintain real-time inventory visibility, comply with GDPR and CCPA simultaneously, integrate decades-old legacy systems with modern cloud platforms, and sometimes – like Victoria's Secret did – shut down our own revenue-generating operations to prevent breaches.
The challenge isn't just technical anymore; it's about securing a business model that demands constant connectivity, rapid scalability, and seamless customer experience while threat actors specifically target the very operational complexity that makes modern retail possible.
Imperative for Action
Retail organizations require a fundamental shift from reactive, fragmented security approaches to proactive, integrated network security architectures that provide comprehensive visibility and control across their entire digital ecosystem.
The cost of inaction, measured in operational disruption, customer data breaches, and brand reputation damage, far exceeds the investment required for comprehensive security modernization.
Aviatrix: Strategic Security Enablement
Aviatrix addresses these challenges by providing the Cloud Native Security Fabric (CNSF) essential for defending against both traditional retail threats and emerging sophisticated actors like UNC3944.
Through Aviatrix’s Cloud Native Security Fabric, consistent security policies across all cloud platforms are enabled, eliminating the configuration inconsistencies that advanced threat groups exploit during privilege escalation and lateral movement phases.
Visibility and Control
The platform's enhanced visibility and control capabilities are particularly critical for detecting both sophisticated techniques employed by groups like UNC3944 and vendor-related security issues before they require drastic measures like complete website shutdowns.
By providing comprehensive network monitoring across multicloud environments, Aviatrix enables security teams to identify unusual data flows, unauthorized privilege escalations, vendor anomalies, and the lateral movement patterns characteristic of advanced persistent threats before they can deploy ransomware or exfiltrate sensitive customer data.
Centralized Policy Management
Likewise, centralized policy management across the retail ecosystem enables consistent security controls for seasonal workforce access, ensuring temporary employees and contractors receive appropriate network access without compromising security.
The platform's compliance automation features help retailers maintain consistent data protection standards across different geographical regions and regulatory frameworks, essential for international retail operations.
Secure Connectivity
Secure connectivity across distributed locations directly mitigates both supply chain attack risks and the advanced persistence techniques demonstrated by UNC3944. By providing encrypted, monitored connections between stores, warehouses, distribution centers, cloud environments, and third-party vendor touchpoints, Aviatrix creates network segmentation that can contain threats and prevent the organization-wide compromise that these sophisticated actors seek to achieve. This visibility extends to vendor connections, potentially enabling early detection of third-party security incidents before they impact primary operations.
Resilience
The platform's operational resilience capabilities ensure that even during sophisticated cyber incidents or vendor-related security events, critical networking infrastructure remains stable and monitored, supporting incident response efforts and maintaining the visibility necessary to track and contain advanced threats across complex retail environments without requiring complete operational shutdowns.
Network Segmentation
Micro-segmentation capabilities are particularly effective against physical-to-digital attack convergence, isolating in-store systems from corporate networks and preventing attackers from using compromised retail endpoints as pivot points into critical business systems. The platform's encrypted transit capabilities protect payment card data and other sensitive information as it moves between POS systems, payment processors, and corporate databases, adding additional layers of protection against man-in-the-middle attacks.
Real-time monitoring and alerting capabilities enable detection of anomalous activities that characterize attacks, including unusual data access patterns, abnormal transaction flows, and unauthorized system communications that might indicate compromised accounts or fraudulent activities.
Strategic Value Proposition
For retail organizations facing threats ranging from opportunistic e-commerce skimming to sophisticated groups like UNC3944, and supply chain risks exemplified by recent vendor-related incidents, Aviatrix provides the secure networking foundation that enables effective defense.
By streamlining network operations and reducing complexity, the platform enables security teams to focus on threat detection and response rather than infrastructure management, critical when facing threats that combine social engineering with advanced technical capabilities and when managing complex vendor relationships.
The solution's comprehensive monitoring extends across the entire multicloud, multi-location infrastructure that defines modern retail operations, providing the visibility necessary to detect both automated attacks, sophisticated human-operated threats, and anomalous vendor behavior. This layered security approach is essential for identifying the early stages of advanced campaigns and supply chain compromises before they can achieve their objectives of data theft, ransomware deployment, or force operational shutdowns.
As retail organizations continue their digital transformation while facing increasingly sophisticated threats and complex vendor dependencies, Aviatrix provides the consistent, secure, and observable networking foundation necessary to support innovation while maintaining the security posture required to protect customer data and ensure business continuity against both traditional cybercriminals and advanced persistent threats targeting the retail sector.
Fortify every store, cloud, and checkout with one unified security fabric. Schedule a demo with Aviatrix today to learn more about integrated retail cybersecurity and see what’s possible.
