AD Security and Recovery for Retail

Protect Retail Businesses from Cyberattacks

Protecting retail organizations from cyberattacks starts with comprehensive Active Directory security and recovery.

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Cyberattacks against retail companies are on the rise

The retail industry is a prime target for cyberattacks. With the rise of e-commerce and online retail stores, retailers are collecting and storing large amounts of customer data, including credit card and contact information. Cyber criminals see an opportunity to exploit vulnerabilities and steal this valuable information.

Cyberattacks against the retail industry can take many forms, including point-of-sale malware, phishing scams, and ransomware attacks. Threat actors can use those tactics to steal credentials, which can lead to exploiting the core identity system—which is Active Directory for 90% of organizations worldwide.

Threat Intelligence report:

99%

of retail cyberattacks were driven by financial motives

Sophos report:

89%

of retail businesses lost revenue because of ransomware attacks in 2022

IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report:

$3.28M

average cost of data breaches in retail organizations in 2022

Kerry Kilker discusses protecting retail organizations’ Active Directory systems with Darren Mar-Elia, Semperis VP of Product

AD is a common target in retail industry attacks

As in other industry sectors, the AD environment in retail organizations is a common target for cybercriminals. One of the most notorious attacks—the Egregor ransomware attack on Kmart—compromised the giant retail chain’s AD to propagate the ransomware payload to as many systems as possible, as quickly as possible. Protecting retail businesses’ AD systems from attack requires a comprehensive identity threat detection and response (ITDR) strategy.

Gain control of identity security

Semperis helps retail organizations prevent, mitigate, and recover from attacks targeting AD, the identity system most retail organizations use to authenticate users and grant access to business-critical applications and services.

Challenges

Solutions

Malicious actors target Active Directory because it’s a tried-and-true method of gaining entry into the system—the starting point for lateral movement into the entire network.

Semperis helps you identify and address security gaps in AD with a security vulnerability assessment that uncovers legacy misconfigurations and evidence of malicious activity.

After breaching the retail company’s system, cybercriminals can lurk for days, weeks, or months before detonating malware—often when the company is most vulnerable, such as during busy holiday seasons.

Semperis uncovers signs that attacks are in progress—even attacks that bypass traditional logging solutions—to stop operators in their tracks before revenue and customer trust are lost.

If a ransomware attack takes down a retail organization’s Active Directory, operations could come to a halt for days or weeks while the core identity system is recovered.

Semperis reduces the time to fully recover Active Directory from days or weeks to minutes or hours—accelerating the return of business operations and closing security gaps to prevent a similar attack recurring.

Why AD systems in retail are vulnerable

Cybercriminals frequently target retail businesses because they can yield great financial benefits. And as online shopping increases, hackers have even more opportunity to exploit techniques like credit card skimming and social engineering to target unsuspecting customers. IT and security teams in retail face multiple challenges with AD security and recovery:

Online payment services that expand attack surface

Third-party plugins that increase risk

Customer-targeted phishing attacks

Cloud-based botnets

Legacy AD misconfigurations

Lack of point-to-point encryption for payments

How Semperis helps retail companies secure AD

Without the Active Directory-specific protection that Semperis provides, your retail organization is still vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Here’s how Semperis has helped some of the largest retail companies recover from AD-related attacks.

Multi-national retail company ensures tested AD recovery strategy

Situation

A Fortune 500 retail company faced a daunting mandate from its board: Implement a tested Active Directory recovery plan to guard against any future threat that targeted the company’s massive identity environment.

Challenge

The company had no defined AD recovery plan for its complex AD environment with 1,100 sites and 500 DCs.

Solution

Semperis helped the global retail chain conduct an end-to-end security assessment and implement a tested AD backup and recovery process.

Benefits

Ensured malware-free AD recovery
Optimized multi-location, offline backup strategy
Accelerated recovery speed

What Kmart learned from the Egregor attack

The Egregor ransomware attack on Kmart was a reminder that AD requires comprehensive AD security and recovery.

Leading retail companies trust Semperis

Top retail companies rely on Semperis to safeguard their most valuable assets, maintain compliance, and achieve operational efficiency in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

LARGEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD BY REVENUE

#1 AND #5

BIG-BOX RETAILERS

COFFEE CHAIN IN THE WORLD

LUXURY BRAND IN THE WORLD

When I saw Semperis ADFR for the first time, it nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes. It is exactly what I hoped for in an AD recovery tool. Over the years, I’ve had numerous concerns about AD forest recovery, and Semperis addresses them all.
Learn more InfoSec Identity and Directory Lead Global Fortune 500 Retailer

Today is the first day I’ve used Forest Druid and I’m very impressed. I’ve never found time to learn Bloodhound, so I really appreciate that I just had to run the tool and then click around the GUI to start finding issues.
SOC Engineer Retail & Packaged Goods Company

Everything starts with an ID and password. First thing you need to recover is credentials to do any other type of recovery.
Kerry Kilker Former CISO
Walmart