Since the early days of the pandemic, the retail sector has experienced a massive transition. Even during lockdowns, online buyers of retail brands came to expect a lot from their respective brands.
So, most retailers with even a minimal online presence had to evolve at a very short notice to meet an unprecedented spike in online shoppers. This further complicated the already challenging situation of entire workforces that were operating remotely.
According to a recent survey conducted by FireMon, a company that specializes in network security solutions, an ever increasing number of retail brands are deploying Zero Trust and Automation to boost their cyber security posture.
This move comes amidst a growing complexity of the cyber security environment, as the overall threat surface has also exponentially increased due to remote work and a record number of people giving preference to online shopping.
Nearly 43% of the respondents of the survey have accelerated their adoption of cloud solutions as a direct response to the pandemic. This move can be attributed to the flexibility that is offered by Cloud Service Providers (CSP) like dinCloud, and the added security.
An overwhelming 81% of the respondents said they have either already implemented, or plan to implement a Zero Trust Security model within the next couple of years. With zero trust, 80% of the respondents expect to achieve better security and lesser complexity.
Interestingly, 89% of the respondent retailers admitted to facing unplanned downtime and disruption of mission critical as well as online customer facing operations after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, just during the past nine months alone.
Nearly all, 98% of the respondents to be precise, emphasized that automating their network and infrastructure security will improve their cyber security posture, regulatory compliance as well as organizational efficiency.
It appears that the public cloud will remain at the forefront of providing retailers across the globe with highly secure and flexible cloud solutions for their emerging remote work and ever increasing consumer needs.
