{"id":198839,"date":"2026-03-24T15:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/24\/expert-says-ai-is-the-top-cybersecurity-issue-faced-by-retailers\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T15:36:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:36:39","slug":"expert-says-ai-is-the-top-cybersecurity-issue-faced-by-retailers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/24\/expert-says-ai-is-the-top-cybersecurity-issue-faced-by-retailers\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert says AI is the top cybersecurity issue faced by retailers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Expert says AI is the top cybersecurity issue faced by retailers<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/nrf.com\/nrfcom\/blog\/expert-says-ai-is-the-top-cybersecurity-issue-faced-by-retailers<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-03-24 15:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: nrf.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. When cybersecurity expert Jeff Greene was asked at NRF\u2019s recent Retail Law Summit what should be at the top of the checklist for in-house attorneys in charge of cyber compliance this year, his answer was clear.\u201cIt\u2019s AI,\u201d he said without hesitation. \u201cIt\u2019s the No. 1 issue that companies face.\u201dRetail Law Resource CenterCheck out NRF’s hub for in-house retail counsel offering insights, tools and connections they need. Greene, an attorney who previously headed the cybersecurity division at the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and was chief of cyber response at the White House National Security Council during the Biden administration, is now co-founder of the security consulting firm Civira Partners. He was the keynote speaker during a session on security and threats to retail data moderated by NRF Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel Stephanie Martz.\u201cThere are so many angles to it,\u201d Greene said of issues involving artificial intelligence that need to be addressed. \u201cHow you\u2019re using it \u2026 how your vendors are using it, what they\u2019re doing with your data, what your policies are.\u201dA key question, he said, is \u201chas AI helped the attackers or the defenders?\u201dAI has fixed the poor grammar that was once the hallmark of a phishing email trying to trick the recipient into clicking on a malicious link, Green said. It has also led to \u201cspear phishing,\u201d which weaves in subjects like hobbies or favorite sports to make a phishing email look like it\u2019s coming from someone the recipient knows. And it filters out people with the same name to be sure the message is reaching the right target.On the other hand, the scale and speed that make it easy for AI to run a \u201cbrute force\u201d attack to discover passwords also make it easy to use AI to block such attacks, he said. And with large companies facing more cyberattacks than any security center can handle, artificial intelligence is a \u201cclassic force multiplier\u201d that can block millions of low-level attacks while identifying the handful of top-level incidents that need human attention.Some things, however, stay the same.\u201cThe basics we had to do before AI are still the basics we have to do now,\u201d Greene said, ranging from employee training to multifactor authentication to firewalls and more. \u201cAI is going to make that easier, but you still need to be involved.\u201dNRF Center for Digital Risk and InnovationExplore NRF’s hub for engagement on key technology issues that have significant policy and risk management implications for the global retail industry.Martz said retail companies don\u2019t hold data on critical infrastructure that might be sought by large-scale, nation-state attackers like China or Russia, but that they do hold sensitive customer data, intellectual property and competitive data. Greene said that means it is still important for retailers to use robust \u201ccyber hygiene\u201d to protect \u201cinsecure edge\u201d devices and technology such as cell phones, routers and firewalls, along with other stepsGreene said he is supportive of employee training on cybersecurity whether AI is involved in threats or not. Despite some studies that say training is only 10% effective, \u201cthat\u2019s still a fairly significant dent,\u201d especially considering that training requires a \u201cfairly limited\u201d investment of time and money, he said.Retail legal departments should work closely with cybersecurity teams to place clear conditions on vendors and contractors, including bans on the use of personal devices and limiting the use of sensitive data to a controlled workspace, he said.Whether it\u2019s a phishing email or a ransomware attack, Greene said companies need to realize \u201calmost all cyberattacks, whether from nation states or criminal gangs, rely on fear \u2014 it is as much psychology as it is technology.\u201d He urges clients, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to look dumb\u201d when faced with uncertain cybersecurity situations and to be sure to ask for help. Executives faced with an email saying, \u201cYou must pay this now!\u201d need to have \u201cthe comfort level to question [that] and say, \u2018Should we really be doing this?\u2019\u201dAs the government works to address cybersecurity, businesses should not expect an expansion of most area of cybersecurity regulation under the Trump administration, Greene said. But they are likely to see less outreach from CISA, the government\u2019s lead cybersecurity agency.CISA has traditionally worked closely with the private sector, alerting retailers and other companies when the agency identifies a cyber threat that might affect them. But with one-third of its staff lost under cutbacks to the federal payroll, \u201cCISA has lost capacity. There\u2019s no way around that,\u201d Greene said.Nonetheless, \u201cthere are still a lot of very mission-focused, skilled people\u201d at CISA and the new head of Greene\u2019s former division is \u201cvery focused on security and security first,\u201d he said.Greene\u2019s session was one of several at the Retail Law Summit that focused on the implications of artificial intelligence.\u201cThis year in particular, it was so clear to us that AI and AI-related issues were really front and center for all of the lawyers who work in retail every day,\u201d Martz said. There is a need \u201cfor lawyers to understand how to foster innovation\u201d made possible by AI \u201cbut at the same time to be able to identify risk quickly and respond to it.\u201d
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Expert says AI is the top cybersecurity issue faced by retailers https:\/\/nrf.com\/nrfcom\/blog\/expert-says-ai-is-the-top-cybersecurity-issue-faced-by-retailers Publish Date: 2026-03-24…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198840,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/a-us.storyblok.com\/f\/1021220\/1027x547\/c27d6eee19\/cybersecurity_awareness.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[26,20,24,25],"class_list":["post-198839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cybersecurity","tag-phishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198841,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198839\/revisions\/198841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}