Resilience by Design: Why Retailers Must Think Like Critical Infrastructure to Survive Cyber Threats
- nicolaferraritest
- Jun 26
- 3 min read
By Daryl Flack, Partner at Avella
In the wake of high-profile breaches across the retail sector - from luxury fashion houses to household-name high street brands, it’s clear that retailers are no longer peripheral targets in the cyber threat landscape. They’re prime targets.
As attackers become more sophisticated, their tactics increasingly mirror those used against Critical National Infrastructure (CNI). For retailers, this means one thing: if your systems aren’t built to withstand disruption, your operations and reputation are at risk.
In a recent article for The Retail Bulletin, I had the opportunity to share insights on why Resilience by Design must become the new strategic standard for retail cyber security.
The Case for Resilience by Design
Retailers traditionally haven’t operated under the same cyber standards as sectors like finance, healthcare, or energy. But that distinction is fading fast. The same ransomware, phishing, and supply chain threats are hitting retail organisations with increasing frequency and ferocity.
Resilience by Design isn’t just a security principle, it’s a business imperative. It means architecting systems and services with built-in resilience from day one, prioritising risk based, proactive security, cultural alignment, and strategic investment. Not to prevent disruption entirely (which is unrealistic), but to contain, recover, and adapt when it happens.
At Avella, we believe that retail organisations must now think more like CNI operators: adopt and a position that a compromise will occur, and plan accordingly.
A Practical Framework for Retail Resilience
To support this shift, within the article I outline a seven-step resilience roadmap tailored for retail environments:
Identify Critical Assets and Services: Know what matters most and prioritise.
Understand How Things Can Fail: Identify attack vectors and map dependencies
Embed Security Early: Don’t bolt it on, bake it in.
Foster a Cyber-Aware Culture: Everyone needs to understand the risks.
Prepare to Respond and Recover: Rehearse and test.
Continuously Improve: Regularly reassess your controls.
Establish Governance and Assurance - Go beyond compliance. Track and assure.
Segmentation: A Retail Resilience Priority
Among all the techniques discussed, network segmentation stands out as one of the most effective and underused controls in retail. By limiting the reach of attackers once inside, segmentation drastically reduces the “blast radius” of an incident.
Imagine if a compromised till or device was stopped from accessing your payments or inventory system. That’s what segmentation does, it helps to stop the spread.
What Retailers Can Learn from CNI
You don’t need to operate at the scale of CNI, but you do need to adopt its mindset. That includes:
Zero Trust by Default: Every user, device, and action must be authenticated and verified.
Supplier Risk Management: With the complexity of modern supply chains. security obligations must be embedded into contracts and onboarding processes.
Strong Governance: Cyber resilience needs board-level accountability, with regular reviews and continuous improvement.
Final Thoughts
The question for retail leaders is no longer if a cyber event will occur, but how ready you’ll be when it does.
At Avella, we support retailers and consumer-facing businesses in building secure-by-design strategies that align with CNI cyber resilience with operational continuity. From architecture to awareness, our focus is not only on helping you defend against disruption, but on ensuring you can operate through it.
Read the original article on The Retail Bulletin: Resilience by Design – A Retailer’s Playbook for Cyber Survival
Want to explore how your retail organisation can embed resilience by design?
