The Association for Retail Technology Standards, part of the National Retail Federation’s Technology Leadership Community, has announced new resources to help retailers safeguard their data. ARTS is dedicated to helping retailers and solution providers identify, adopt and integrate current and emerging information technology standards.
“Protecting customer relationships and important enterprise data is a top priority for retailers,” says Tom Litchford, NRF vice president of retail technology. “Data security is everyone’s job, and these resources will hopefully enhance collaboration between software developers and security professionals with the goal to improve it.”
The three security programs designed by ARTS exclusively for retailers are:
• The ARTS Cybersecurity Primer is intended for non-security experts such as data enterprise architects and those who develop and implement various IT systems, networks or applica- tions within an organization. This paper provides a high-level outline and guidance on what developers and architects should be wary of in areas of relevant risks, as well as topic areas for further research related to common best practices and management strategies.
• The ARTS Data Privacy Primer provides a base for architects and product managers to recognize what data is classified as sensitive and what the risk is. It also gives input to help organizations develop privacy policies. In addition, the primer offers recommendations to chief information officers and architects for enabling a privacy-by-design approach to development and testing, as well as an understanding of the privacy implications of development, testing
and operation activities.
• The ARTS Data Classification Template provides a basis for retailers to begin developing their own data-classification models without having to start from scratch. Using the ARTS retail-data model, the template highlights data that retailers might want to give additional attention to in the areas of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard requirements, privacy and potentially sensitive corporate data.
IBM Worldwide Research lead and work team chair Sima Nadler adds, “Retailers today face major challenges in securing personal data of their customers and their employees. IBM is pleased to be able to contribute to a resource that will increase understanding of issues around privacy and data security in retail IT development.”
Both primers and the data-classification template are now available for download at www.nrf.com.