With the high volume of valuable data your store collects on your potential and current customers, it’s no surprise that automotive dealerships are susceptible to cyber risks and attacks. Hackers can exploit vulnerabilities in dealership systems to steal customer data (including Social Security numbers, addresses, credit card details) through malware, phishing attacks, or unsecured networks.

That’s why it’s crucial for your store to regularly complete cybersecurity risk assessments and implement cyber risk management solutions to help protect your customers’ data. Here are a few of the main cyber risks for dealers and ways you can improve cybersecurity at your dealership.

How to Improve Cyber Risk Management at Your Dealership

What Is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity refers to the practice of protecting computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. For your dealership, it’s about keeping your and your customers’ digital information safe from cyberattacks.

Having an effective cyber risk management plan in action is crucial for many reasons:

• Protecting Customer Data: Your store handles a wealth of sensitive customer information, including Social Security numbers, addresses, credit card details, and driver’s licenses. A data breach exposing this information can be devastating for customers, leading to identity theft and financial losses.
• Preventing Financial Loss: Cyberattacks can disrupt dealership operations, causing lost sales and productivity. Ransomware attacks that encrypt data can be particularly crippling, forcing victims to pay a ransom to regain access to critical business systems.
• Meeting Compliance Requirements: Data privacy regulations mandate that businesses take steps to secure customer information. Failing to comply can result in hefty fines and damage your dealership’s reputation.
• Maintaining Customer Trust: Consumers are increasingly concerned about data privacy. A cyberattack that compromises customer data can erode trust and damage your dealership brand, leading to lost customer loyalty.

Defend Your Data Against These 6 Cyber Risks

1. Outdated Software and Vulnerable Files

Outdated, unpatched software with known vulnerabilities creates openings for attackers to exploit and access sensitive customer data. It’s important to regularly update your operating systems, web browsers, software, and apps. Your IT team can set up automatic updates to ensure they are maintained.

To better protect your files, be sure to back up crucial documents offline on an external hard drive or in a cloud-based service, and store any paper documents safely. Adding encryption to all data that contains sensitive personal information will further safeguard these valuable details. This data might be on mobile devices, laptops, cloud storage, and portable drives, so securing it at the source is critical.

2. Weak Vendor Security Measures

When performing a cyber risk assessment of your own digital devices and software, don’t forget to evaluate your third-party vendors and service providers as well. Weaknesses in vendor software or service providers used by dealerships can be exploited to gain access to customer data.

The FTC Safeguards Regulation requires that all vendors and service providers follow the requirements for protecting customer information. Be sure to frequently communicate with your vendors to ensure they maintain sufficient measures to secure customer data.

3. Physical Security Gaps

Lack of controls on access to dealership devices and documents can lead to unauthorized access to customer data on those devices. While users who have administrative access can install new software and create new users, non-IT personnel should not have administrative privileges.

Implement a system that restricts access to customer data based on employee roles and responsibilities, and limit access to dealership devices and documents containing customer data with security cameras, access control systems, and locked cabinets. You can also implement data loss prevention (DLP) software to monitor and control data movement, preventing sensitive information like customer data from being accidentally or maliciously shared outside authorized channels.

4. Weak Passwords

Employees using weak passwords or reusing them across accounts makes them easier targets for brute-force attacks, potentially exposing customer data. Be sure your staff know to never share their password over phone, text, or email.

Include password access on all work-related devices, and help prevent password-guessing attacks by limiting failed login attempts. You can further boost security beyond a password by implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) that requires a secondary verification step (such as needing a PIN sent to a mobile device), to access systems containing customer data.

5. Phishing Attacks

Phishing is a cybersecurity threat that attempts to trick users into revealing sensitive information or clicking on malicious links. Phishing emails or messages often appear to be from legitimate sources like banks, credit card companies, or familiar businesses. These emails often pressure the recipient to act quickly without thinking critically, threaten account suspension or legal action if the recipient doesn’t comply, and contain a malicious link or attachment that can download malware, steal login credentials, or redirect users to fake websites designed to capture personal information.

To help protect against phishing cyber risks, install an email gateway for web and email scanning. This layer of security will help stop incoming emails and will inspect them for harmful content before releasing them to the recipient’s inbox.

6. Lack of Cybersecurity Training

Regularly educate employees on cybersecurity best practices, including phishing awareness and social engineering tactics, to establish a culture committed to data security. Schedule training sessions to inform employees about new cyber risks and vulnerabilities, and ensure all new team members know how to set a strong password, log in and out of workstations properly, and spot any suspicious email messages.

Because many cybersecurity threats occur at a workstation (such as an attempt to trick a user into installing malware at the endpoint), you can utilize endpoint protection software to help combat this. This technology is critical because it proactively detects and isolates a piece of malware or virus before the user downloads it.

Safeguard Your Store’s Data from Cybersecurity Threats

Constantly reviewing your current cybersecurity risk assessments and managing cyber risks at your dealership is necessary for the protection of your valuable data. While implementing your cybersecurity solutions might seem daunting, keeping these six strategies in mind can help you secure your dealership’s digital defenses by identifying and eliminating potential cyber risks before they become harmful.

In addition to cybersecurity at your dealership, how you capture, store, maintain, and safeguard your data is important too. You can trust Affinitiv to help you drive leads, protect valuable information, and leverage key customer data for targeted, on-point communications—and prevent risks to your business.

Contact us today and discover how our expert solutions can help you meet and exceed your sales, service, and retention goals.