Migrating data is never an easy task. There are many security concerns that need to be addressed before, during, and after the migration process. A security breach can have a significant negative impact on your company's business, so it is important to do everything in your power to minimize the risk of one occurring during this process.
This blog post will outline some of the security challenges and prevention techniques for successful data migrations to CommerceCore™ Merchant Operating system.
What is Merchant Operating System (MOPS) integration
Merchant Operating System integration is the process of connecting and synchronizing a Merchant Operating System software with other applications and data sources.
The Merchant Operating System software integration provides a unified picture of information from several systems in real time, regardless of whether the data originates in the Merchant Operating System or in other systems. The relevance of the Merchant Operating System integration is that it improves the efficiency of corporate operations and workflows while also increasing team cooperation.
EXAMPLE:
An e-Commerce storefront is where a visitor submits a lead, asks a demo, and/or purchases a product. A CRM is a piece of software that may be used to handle lead data such as needs, point of entry, lead quality, location in the sales funnel, customer details, and transactions. In general, your Merchant Operating System software must interface with all other platforms and synchronize data from Omni-channels. That is the biggest benefit, the CommerceCore™ Merchant Operating System Integration gives.
Common challenges of Merchant Operating System integration
Cloud computing has the potential to supplement and expedite an increasing number of corporate procedures. The Merchant Operating System is no different. However, despite the tempting array of benefits, post-adoption is partially mitigated by the dangers and difficulty of properly completing the Merchant Operating System transfer.
Data migration
Prior to the implementation of the Merchant Operating System, certain departments may have relied on systems built to handle just their specialized duties, such as standalone accounting or human resources software, while others may have relied on general-purpose tools such as spreadsheets. Businesses must adopt a rigorous strategy to guarantee a successful data migration, which often entails reviewing, extracting, purifying, and converting the data from each of these apps before migrating into the database.
Security challenges during data migration
Today, the opportunity in the hacking sector is at an all-time high. Merchant Operating Systems are the focal point of the organizations that employ them. Pirated access can confirm medical information, allow thievery at financial institutions, and harm industrial businesses. It is now time for companies to take the Merchant Operating System security on a serious note.
27% of business respondents are worried about a security breach when adopting an Merchant Operating System solution.(Source)
The security challenges that may come with Merchant Operating System implementation process include security compliance, data management and protection, cyber threats, third-party security audits (TSA), network security in the cloud environment.
Think about these 3 main challenges before you decide to migrate your company's system data:
Inadequate Response Planning
The first Merchant Operating System (MOPS) security threat is lack of planning. Many of the businesses cannot run properly due to lack of planning.
Companies do not have effective methods in place to detect the MOPS vulnerabilities and incursion. The worse scenario is that, many don’t have an adequate incident response plan in place for when there is a suspicious activity.
Vulnerable Interconnections
The Merchant Operating System is frequently linked to a variety of different systems. This is one of the benefits of a Merchant Operating System. It also offers a security risk since it exploits a flaw in one of the systems, allowing access to the others.
A Interconnections should be considered by businesses. They must also keep a close watch on them because there is more room for assault than ever before.
Inadequate Patch Management
Patch management refers to the practice of correcting vulnerabilities in an organization's infrastructure in order to preserve network security. Inactive security patches are one of the most serious Merchant Operating System concerns nowadays.
Many companies have ineffective processes in place for monitoring and implementing these upgrades. Poor patch management may be expensive in terms of security.
How to ensure security during data migration
A critical concern for every company planning to migrate to the cloud is ensuring data security across every phase of the migration process. Although prominent cloud vendors simplify the migration process to the best possible extent, eventually, data security during cloud migration remains the company’s responsibility that undergoes it.
Accordingly, if you are about to migrate your data to the cloud, consider these factors to ensure data security during the process:
Understand what you have
In the past, businesses would approach their data storage like an attic or basement in their home—just keep it there, and it didn't really matter what 'it' was.
With data being so important these days, a prospective move is an ideal opportunity to inventory exactly what the data includes. Is it in a form that can be used today and in the future? How well does your data adhere to storage and preservation standards inside your data governance framework? What can you safely get rid of? What needs to be retained?
Know the compliance regulations
Before cleaning up the data, your company must have a good awareness of the compliance regulations that surround it.
In areas including as healthcare and banking, regulatory and government authorities have strong standards (as well as severe fines) if data is not adequately preserved and secured. Any business undertaking a data move must follow the guidelines for safe data usage.
Develop A List Of Authorized Personnel For Accessing Data
Most IT companies follow the concept of least privilege, which asserts that end users should only have access to what they require to do their work successfully, and nothing more.
This is also true for data migration. Given the significance of the data, as well as the expense and time involved in performing a migration, only individuals with specialized needs and skills should have access to the data while it is being converted.
Of course, after the transfer is complete, end users should be able to re-access the data they require to do their duties.
In addition, use two-factor authentication to limit access during a data move. Even authorized users employ this two-step process in two-factor authentication to protect data security.
Another critical part of your move is data deduplication. Deduplication is a technique for compressing the quantity of data that must be moved and can aid in reducing the footprint required for the new data storage. Deduplication can cut expenses and enhance overall data security by lowering the volume of data slated for transfer.
Perform A Phased Migration
You've determined that cloud migration is essential for your company. However, don't rush to move everything all at once. Do it in stages instead. It improves data security by allowing your staff to become acquainted with cloud systems. Begin with low priority data to free up some of your storage-related resources and thereby reduce risk. Furthermore, before uploading high-risk or essential data, you may verify setup and uncover security vulnerabilities.
Furthermore, gradual migration gives you time to think about and implement the required safeguards for your data. It aids in the avoidance of mistakes that may render data unsafe or give unauthorized data access in the aftermath of a quick migration.
Encrypt During Transit
Encrypting data in transit implies safeguarding information while it travels from one point to another. Moving data from a laptop to the cloud is one example. Data in motion is often seen to be more vulnerable to exploitation than data at rest.
Data should be safeguarded wherever it is, but if it must be transferred, there are strategies that may be used to provide the greatest possible protection. Among these strategies are network security measures and encrypted network protocols.
Conclusion
The CommerceCore™ Merchant Operating System is flexible but one should look forward to the security challenges to increase a business. Today, many of the Merchant Operating System security challenges actually come from action not taken by companies using these systems.
For this reason alone it's important for organizations looking at their next generation software solutions to make sure they select an all-inclusive system that can deliver on both functionality and secure data management needs with ease.
Schedule a demo or contact us today so we can help you find out more about how your e-Commerce business could benefit from CommerceCore™ Merchant Operating system.
Merchant Operating System (MOPS) refers to a type of software used by Shopify merchants to handle day-to-day online-business operations including warehouse management, multichannel product management, invoicing, payment tracking, order processing, and much more.
The Merchant Operating System also includes corporate performance management software to help with planning, budgeting, forecasting, and reporting.
The MOPS is built on the widely popular open-source ERP Odoo Enterprise Framework. 26000 apps/plugins/modules/extensions are available from an Integrated App Store. We help our customers carefully pick and integrate apps based on their needs through our Professional Services.
