How to Secure Your Customers and Protect Their Data: Everything You Need to Know

As a security professional, you understand protecting your customers and their data is critical. Customers want to trust that as a vendor, you’ve taken the appropriate precautions to ensure a secure digital experience. 

Let me log in, look at my stuff, and transact, but keep others away from my account, especially those fraudsters. While you’re at it, please make it convenient as well. And then there’s the aspect of storing personal customer data, which is often like gold, oil, or maybe lithium—it's valuable and can make or break a business. It drives an organization’s product development plans and future revenue. If you don’t know your customers, then you’ll likely build a less desirable product. So organizations try to collect as much customer data as possible, but it must be well protected once collected. 

In our digital world, your customers' primary interaction with your brand is through your website or app. With more digital interactions than ever before, you need to make gaining access as secure and seamless as possible, which most often requires a username and password. And don’t forget about registration. If it’s a prospect, you’ll want to make a good first impression. Passwords and lack of real-time threat signals are the #1 security threat to organizations today and are prime targets in cyberattacks. 

Did you know?

86% of breaches involve the use of stolen credentials (VZ)

Next, it's all about keeping your customers' sensitive info safe and sound. We're talking personal details, financial records, and transaction history. By locking down that data, you prevent the bad guys from pulling off identity theft, fraud, and sneaky unauthorized access. The goal is to prevent any data breaches or at least quickly identify any possible security concerns. Otherwise, you’ll incur big costs. 

Did you know?

$150 is the average cost per lost or stolen record (IBM)

But that's not all. When you go the extra mile to protect consumer data, you're showing them that you're the real deal—a company they can trust. You become their go-to when it comes to privacy and ethical practices. And that trust goes a long way in building customer loyalty and boosting your brand reputation. People want to do business with companies that take their privacy seriously. Essentially, just common courtesy. 

Did you know?

97% of companies are realizing benefits such as competitive advantage or investor appeal from their privacy investments (Cisco)

Oh, and let's not forget about the legal side of things. Protecting customer data is not just a good idea–it's the law. You have to stay compliant with data protection regulations, or you could be facing some hefty fines and legal troubles. So, by putting customer data protection at the top of your priority list, you're not just doing the right thing—you're also reducing major risks to your business. 

Did you know?

71% of the world’s countries now have data protection and privacy legislation in place (UN)

As a security pro, you hold the keys to safeguarding your consumers and their data; your organization depends on you. 

At the end of the day, we’re all customers and we have various reasons for choosing one vendor over another. But if we look at it from a security lens, there are two main factors we customers typically consider. Will this vendor ensure secure access to my account while keeping my personal information secure? And, will this vendor respect me by not sharing my personal data with others? 

Protect Your Customers

Customers expect a fortress of security around their accounts and their personal information. They want their identities and data to be locked down, shielded from sneaky hackers and unauthorized access. They crave peace of mind, knowing that their accounts are fortified with strong authentication, authorization, and a vigilant defense against any breaches. It's all about customers feeling safe and secure, and believing that the vendor invests in and understands security. 

Did you know?

78% of respondents would stop engaging with a brand if it had experienced a breach (SC)

Respect Your Customers

Customers expect their privacy to be honored in the realm of digital security. They want to be treated as individuals with rights and preferences when it comes to the use of their sensitive data. Customers desire transparency and control over how their information is collected, stored, and shared. They value clear communication about privacy practices, explicit consent mechanisms, and the ability to manage their preferences and permissions.

Did you know?

Consumers will reward brands that have responsible data practices with 23% more purchase intent (CPOM)

Well, that’s nice to hear, you might say, but can you back this up with a few examples? Sure, here are a few more recent cases where large companies' security and privacy practices weren’t quite up to snuff, broken up into two categories: data breaches and bad privacy practices. 

Examples of Data Breaches

North Face had a data breach. Over 200,000 accounts got caught up in a crafty credential-stuffing attack on their website, exposing personal details like names, purchase histories, addresses, phone numbers, genders, and reward records. Luckily, credit card info was safe, but as a precaution, North Face reset all passwords and gave users a heads-up to change their passwords on other sites just to be extra safe. Nothing like having to change the locks on your front door. 

Next, T-Mobile has found itself in hot water again with yet another data breach. This time, the personal information of hundreds of account holders has been exposed, including sensitive details like full names, addresses, social security numbers, and more. T-Mobile has acted quickly by resetting account pins, offering free credit monitoring, and pledging to enhance its security measures.

Examples of Bad Privacy Practices

Amazon has been slapped with a jaw-dropping fine of €746 million ($887 million) by a European privacy watchdog for breaking data protection laws. The Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection wasn't happy with Amazon's compliance with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), so they've ordered the retail giant to shape up. But don't worry, Amazon is putting up a fight, denying any data breaches and customer exposure, and they're planning to appeal.

But, Meta wins the crown, at least so far. Meta got hit with an astronomical fine of €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by an EU privacy watchdog for breaking data protection rules. They were also ordered to stop transferring data from European Facebook users to the United States. This ruling could have a massive impact on Meta’s ad targeting capabilities and its business in Europe. 

These types of security breaches and privacy fines have only escalated in the last few years. But let’s dig in a little deeper and get an understanding of the main reasons and tactics driving all of this. Data breaches often happen when a bad actor infiltrates your organization’s systems and is able to access customer accounts and personal data and even install malware for further exploitation. This is all part of a ransomware scheme. On the other hand, data privacy and consent violations are when a company volunteers customer data to third parties based on financial incentives. But first, let’s focus on data breaches. 

Phishing and compromised credentials.

Cybercriminals lure unsuspecting individuals into their web of deceit, using cleverly disguised emails or messages to trick them into revealing sensitive information. Once armed with stolen credentials, these nefarious actors can infiltrate systems, wreak havoc, and exploit personally identifiable information (PII) and organizational data. It's a reminder that even a single click could open the gateway to cyberattacks, emphasizing the critical need for real-time threat signals and constant vigilance. 

Reused and Weak Passwords.

Imagine if keys had a very basic blade design with very few teeth patterns. It’d make it pretty easy for a thief to enter a locked house. That's precisely how weak and reused passwords can spell disaster in the realm of cybersecurity. Just as a single vulnerable door can compromise an entire community's safety, using easily guessable or recycled passwords exposes individuals and organizations to a similar fate. Cybercriminals eagerly exploit this weakness, breaking into accounts, pilfering sensitive information, and leaving chaos in their wake.

Redundant and unprotected data stores.

Picture a chest full of gold, or customer accounts and data in our case. Now let’s make numerous copies of that chest, and hide it in different places using different locks. Organizations often have a central data store, but other teams decide to create their own customer repository that’d be more convenient for their operations. By doing this, the organization has increased its attack surface by a factor of ten while also using inconsistent security practices. Unifying and safeguarding your customers’ data while sunsetting unnecessary directories will reduce your security risks. 

Bots and account takeovers.

It’s one thing to fend off a few attacks, but is your organization prepared to defend against a constant automated flow of attacks? That’s where bots come in. They’re simple programs looking for weak spots in your system. Once they find these weak spots, they get the real bad actors involved, human ones, who take it from there. Companies report millions of dollars in fraud losses annually—and fraudsters are only getting more efficient.

Lack of consent capture and enforcement.

If you own something, you don’t want others using it without your permission, right? The same applies to your personal data, and companies shouldn’t use it without your permission. In the absence of robust mechanisms for obtaining and enforcing consent, we as customers risk subjecting ourselves to a barrage of unwanted data collection, intrusive marketing tactics, and an erosion of trust.

Inability to enforce consent.

Imagine a world where privacy promises are mere illusions, empty promises at best. The inability to effectively enforce consent creates a breeding ground for privacy violations, where our digital boundaries are disregarded and our data is exploited without consequence. This is quite similar to the famous Seinfeld car reservation bit, “You know how to take a car rental reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation”. 

Unauthorized access to customer data.

The place you do business with has your personal data, but they should limit access and ensure that only the relevant employees have access to it, which doesn’t always happen. This is especially true for large companies where, for example, a marketing team gets a hold of customer data and starts using it to drive leads. But the marketing team was never the owner of the data and therefore shouldn’t have access to it. 

Failure to comply with global regulations.

The items we just covered above, along with several others, led governments to develop global regulations in response to companies mistreating customer information. The most important general privacy regulations today are GDPR from the European Union, Consumer Data Right (CDR) from Australia, and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The regulations differ slightly, but the ultimate goal is to ensure customer privacy and consent. If companies don’t abide, then penalties, fines, and court fees hit their bottom lines. 

One nuance in particular that has garnered a lot of attention is where organizations actually store data, in what regions. If a customer resides in the EU, then their data has to be stored in the EU and not in the US or Brazil, for example. This creates a challenge when managing a global cloud infrastructure, which is now starting to require regional and sometimes even in-country data stores to meet regulatory requirements.   

In an ideal world, all vendors and companies will follow these rules and best practices by protecting and respecting their customer data and security. But we know that this isn’t always the case. Let’s briefly discuss the impact when organizations don’t follow these security and privacy standards. 

Identity theft.

Bad actors can use customers’ data to impersonate them and steal their identities. They can collect their tax returns and open credit cards, leaving customers with unpleasant surprises like debt and mental stress. 

Financial loss.

Bad actors are typically after money, and they’ll access customers’ accounts and use their personal data to get it. There’s always a loser and a winner in any scenario, so if a bad actor wins, then the customer loses. 

Unsolicited outreach.

This one isn’t quite as bad as the two above, but it’s pesky and annoying. You’d rather not have other 3rd parties know more about you than you know about them. Why should they have access to your information, know your interests, and weasely market to you? They shouldn’t unless you provided consent.

Loss of customer trust.

Just like with human interactions, trust between a customer and an organization takes a while to build, but it can be quickly lost. Most companies' growth is fueled by returning customers and their brand loyalty, which then helps attract prospective customers in the meantime. If trust is broken, then this equation doesn’t work. 

Reduced revenue.

Loss of customer trust leads to reduced growth, lower revenue, and less shareholder value. This could be a vicious cycle that’s difficult to manage and reverse. 

Greater costs.

This is like receiving an unexpected bill–nobody likes that. Plus, it makes an organization look less stable and less predictable, driving down shareholder value while impacting the bottom line. 

Well, now that we understand the problem, let’s touch on ways to fix or avoid these issues by ensuring the security of your customers’ accounts and personal data while respecting their privacy preferences. This often requires a solid Identity and Access Management (IAM) foundation and the right set of capabilities. Specifically, Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) allows businesses to securely authenticate, capture, and manage customers’ identity and profile data while controlling what applications, services, and information users can access.

Modern approaches to CIAM enable businesses to identify who their customers are and what applications they should have access to in a way that doesn’t require compromising convenience for security. By continuously assessing the trustworthiness of each customer’s identity throughout their session, businesses can dynamically adjust the level of authentication required based on real-time risk assessments to make security visible only when absolutely necessary. This approach allows customers to securely engage with digital properties without encountering unnecessary friction.

We’ll cover a few essential IAM capabilities below. They’re presented in a progressive fashion based on the maturity of the identity practice an organization might have, but you can always combine or jump around based on company priorities. 

Phase 1: Secure Login

Passwordless authentication. First, secure authentication has to be in place, but unfortunately, passwords are often one of the weak links in a security infrastructure. Using various risk signals, passwordless authentication protects your customers and strengthens your overall security posture by reducing the reliance on easily compromised and reused passwords while providing frictionless access to your apps.

Fraud prevention. Strong authentication also prevents bad actors from gaining access. You can continue to leverage risk signals to stop bots and bad actors with an integrated fraud prevention solution without disturbing legitimate customers. It monitors user behavior and device signals throughout a user session, assesses risk, and automatically makes fraud mitigation decisions in real time.

Phase 2: Data Security

Secure customer identity data. Once a customer has registered and provided you with their data, you have to keep it safe, which requires a secure data store. Deploy a secure centralized directory that’s tailored for identity attributes enabling you to deliver unified customer profiles while retiring redundant data stores. Ensure your teams have appropriate access to customer data with the necessary encryption. 

Privacy and consent. Capturing and enforcing consent can be tricky if not architected properly. With privacy and consent preferences embedded into your identity management solution, your business will build customer trust and stay compliant with regulations while creating seamless digital experiences. Ensure regional customer data residency where necessary. 

Phase 3: Real-time Security

Continuous adaptive trust. Once a customer has been granted access, various other checks should be in place throughout their session to reduce the risk of malicious activity. Continuous adaptive trust provides a security approach rooted in Zero Trust principles. It focuses on dynamically evaluating and adapting trust levels based on various factors and contexts in real-time, instead of simply relying on a firewall as the security perimeter. It uses a combination of behavioral analysis, vulnerability assessments, and contextual information to determine the trustworthiness of users and devices accessing your resources or systems.

Looking Past the Immediate Horizon

Decentralized identity. This one is a new and quickly approaching concept that gives customers the ability to control their own identity and personal data. Decentralized identity gives control of identity data back to your users. It lets you verify IDs, documents, and identity claims like driver's licenses and issue digital credentials based on those. Users can share their digital credentials with organizations to quickly and effortlessly prove who they are.

At this point, you are likely well-versed in the challenges organizations face when it comes to securing customers and ensuring privacy. But better yet, you’re aware of a few solutions you can now explore. 

At Ping Identity, we take security seriously, and we know it requires a solid IAM foundation. We’re a provider of intelligent identity solutions that enable companies to balance security and personalized, streamlined user experiences. Better yet, we make it easy to stitch user journeys and security policies across various applications in a no-code manner. Ping’s orchestration capability leads to speed, agility, and, ultimately, more value and revenue creation.

Contact us if you have any follow-up questions, or check out our PingOne for Customers solution to learn more about capabilities and solution packages to ensure customer security and privacy.