Richard Connor, president of LockStock Cybersecurity, highlighted the importance of following proper security protocols to attendees of OHI’s Outdoor Hospitality Conference and Expo (OHCE) on Tuesday (Nov. 11) morning.
He began the session by noting to attendees that attackers look for easy targets and that no system is completely impenetrable.
“We see quite a few attacks coming through smaller companies and vendors that work with larger companies,” Connor explained, while telling employees that properly vetting vendors is a key part of any working relationship.
He highlighted several scenarios for attendees that could be potential issues.
One, focused on a booking system disruption where staff wouldn’t be able to check in guests and may be left scrambling, frustrated and uninformed on how to handle the problem.
This scenario could lead to refunds, bad reviews and lost revenue.
“If something happens, it is important to understand who is responsible for these systems,” Connor said. “Who manages the relationship with the vendor? Does the vendor have alerts and are you set up for those? What is the alternative booking method?
“On top of that, you need to catalog integrations with the system, including POS, email, text alerts, PMS and more,” he added. “Know who has admin access.”
Connor noted that multi-factor authentication is important, while also telling attendees that they needed to utilize admin controls and create separate access codes for different parts of the system.
“Does your vendor provide a backup of the data? If not, do you have another way of backing the data up for that?” he asked attendees. “How much data should you be backing up? Again, there’s a cost associated with this. Do you need weeks’ worth of data backed up? Do you need months’ worth? Do you need just the last few minutes to be backed up?”
Connor told attendees that Wi-Fi abuse and invoice fraud are other common ways for hackers to gain access to a system. He said that park owners need to be proactive about ensuring their WI-Fi systems are segregated, so that the system a camper is using is not the same one connected to private business data.
“If you suspect that something isn’t right when it comes to an invoice or other document, pick up the phone and call to make sure,” Connor explained.
