Security and You: How RepairQ Protects Retail Repair Merchants and Their Customers

What’s the problem?

Data security is a hugely important topic, and for a good reason.

There were over 1500 data breaches (that we know of) last year, and more than 150M plus records were compromised (according to the 2017 Data Breach Year-End Review released by the Identity Theft Resource Center® (ITRC) and CyberScout®).

What’s at risk?

Data security, especially when it comes to consumer personal data, is a critical topic that’s showing up in the news more and more frequently.

Small retail merchants may not think much about data security on a daily basis, but putting consumer data at risk, even for a small business, can have dire consequences.

At RepairQ, we take consumer data privacy and security very seriously. Regardless of whether we’re supporting small business owners or enterprise businesses, data privacy and security is a top priority for our team. – James Schellhorn, RepairQ Product Team

If you’re a retail merchant and new to the data security conversation, here are a few topics that may be important for you to consider.

All data is important, however there is critical data that retailers should be the most concerned with.

Personally Identifiable Data

Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data that could potentially identify a specific individual. Most recently, PII has become a central topic in the EU where a policy has passed that places strict rules and heavy fines for merchants, software companies, or any other custodians of PII that may input, store, or transfer consumer data.

What does RepairQ do to protect Consumer PII Data?

The RepairQ software provides a secure way of storing this information in accordance with generally accepted security practices, including encryption in transit, principle of least privilege within the configuration of security classes, and a program of regular code reviews, along with external penetration tests. While we are confident that the software can provide our customers with the ability to protect consumer data, it’s important to note that policies like GDPR still require participation from merchants to be diligent about who, where, and why consumer data is collected and made available.

Credit Card data

Exposure of consumer credit card data is one of the highest risk and potentially damaging exposures that a merchant should be concerned with.

What does RepairQ do to protect credit card data?

RepairQ employs the highest in security standards certified by the PCI Council. EMV ensures that the credit card used by the consumer is authentic and removes liability from the merchant if the card is indeed fraudulent. P2PE plus tokenization ensures that consumer credit card data is encrypted from the point of swipe, manual keyed entry, or chip insertion. RepairQ is one of the only software providers of retail repair software to deploy and manage a 100% P2PE solution certified by the PCI Council. To learn more, head over to the integrated payments page.

What’s the cost?

Ponemon Institute estimates an average breach cost of $3.5 million in 2017, with a 27% probability that a U.S. company will experience a breach in the next 24 months that costs them between $1.1M and $3.8M (According to Ponemon Institute research sponsored by IBM).

Want to talk consumer data and security with our team? We’re here to help.

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Jared Warren

Author

Jared Warren is the Digital Marketing Manager for ServiceCentral Technologies. He is the lead copywriter for all digital content related to both ServiceManager and RepairQ, and enjoys spending his time outside the office dedicated to his passions of competitive gaming, reading, and his wife Rachel.