This year’s holiday shopping season is much different compared to years’ past, with consumers making the vast majority of their purchases online. Black Friday proved this trend, with consumers spending $9 billion on U.S. retail websites, a 22% increase over the previous record of $7.4 billion set on Black Friday 2019.
For retailers, this rapid shift to e-commerce means significant opportunity to increase sales margins, in an effort to end the year strong as COVID-19 continues to rattle the industry. However, this opportunity also comes with significant risk, as malicious actors are highly-motivated to exploit holes in retailers’ digital platforms for financial gain this holiday shopping season. And with Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report finding that vulnerable web apps are a primary cause of retail data breaches, retailers must prioritize the security of their e-commerce applications and software to ensure a better, safer online experience.