3 Steps to Secure your Data

How can you tell that your dispensary data is secure? Failing to protect your sales data mean the difference between running a dispensary smoothly or recording sales and inventory on paper for a week. Losing your client data can damage your dispensary reputation and make customers uneasy about signing up with their personal information.

Securing your data prevents situations like the MJFreeway hack earlier this year linked here (and the more recent hack linked here). In a technological world, dispensary owners need to be knowledgeable when it comes to protecting their client data. The days of pen and paper are over.

But don’t worry! There are simple methods you can use to protect your data and be the hero your dispensary needs.

Not staying up to date with technology and data security could cost your business thousands of dollars.

If you don't want your client info and sales statistics plastered all over the internet, take the time to assess these three steps:

1. Take weekly offline backups of your data.

No matter what POS or management system you use in your dispensary, it is important that you make backups of your data often in case hacks or system errors occur. This ensures that your store recovers from data loss faster and avoids catastrophic failures that prevents day to day operations. With these backups, in the case of an emergency your dispensary can revert to a previous save point. Although you may lose a couple days worth of data, it’s better than losing all of it.

Keep calm and make backups. Simple exports to CSV takes no time at all!

2. Set security roles for your employees to limit what data is visible to them.

You don't want bud tenders to have access to company-wide reports. New hires shouldn’t be able to edit your customer list or make payment refunds/edits. Ensure that proper permissions are setup to prevent untrained employees messing with critical store data. Ideally, your POS or management software provider will have security rules and locks in place for you to manage employee permissions.

3. Always be up to date with your current POS provider and know what security measures they take.

Take the time and ask your POS provider these questions:

• How does your POS provider store your data? Find out if they host servers themselves or if they use services provided by another company. Typically, POS companies that host their own servers are more prone to hacks if they are not well educated in the latest data security measures. If hosting is provided by multi-billion dollar corporations like Amazon, your data is generally safer.
• What are their in-house security protocols like? No matter how robust and impenetrable a system can be, it still cannot prevent someone from looking over your shoulder and stealing your passwords. Does your POS provider have measures in place to prevent employees from working in insecure networks? Are they accessing your store data while in line at Starbucks? Ask and learn how and when your POS provider accesses your data. It is a immediate red flag if they cannot answer your questions.

For more information on data security and how we can help your dispensary stay safe, check us out over here!

Run your store with confidence in your POS provider’s security. Ask them how they handle your data.

Greenline Systems is a cannabis technology solutions company based in Vancouver. Interested in our monthly newsletter? Contact us at info@getgreenline.co

Check out our website at https://getgreenline.co