Cybersecurity Services for Breweries & Taprooms

Phishing scams that are the cause of 73% of breaches, ransomware attacks on POS and business systems, credentials theft due to the use of easy or reused passwords, and payment card skimming are the most major security threats that breweries face. Being a very attractive target for hackers, breweries are defenseless since they accept payments, store customer data, and normally do not have a separate security staff.

PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) is Canada’s Federal Privacy Law under which Private Sector Organizations are regulated concerning the Collection, Use and Disclosure of Personal Information. Canadian breweries are required to notify the Privacy Commissioner as well as the individuals concerned if any breaches that occur to them may cause “a real risk of significant harm.” There are fines and loss of reputation if the company doesn’t comply.

PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) applies to any business that accepts credit card payments and breweries are no exception. If you accept card payments at your taproom or website, you must follow PCI DSS. As of 2024, additional requirements for authentication, encryption, and security testing were introduced under PCI DSS 4.0. BEERSOFT can assist breweries in making their payment security PCI-compliant.

Around 5% to 20% of their IT budget on average is usually allocated by small businesses for cybersecurity. For breweries, the investment in preventive security measures may go from $200 to $1,000 monthly for outsourced services, which is much lower than the average cost of a breach ($120,000 to $1.24 million) for small businesses. Focusing on prevention is a wise decision as the price of it is nowhere near the price of recovery.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a method to check who users are by requiring them to provide more than one piece of evidence. Most commonly, it is a code that is sent to the user’s phone or generated by an app. MFA is so popular because it is the main safeguard against password-related security breaches as 81% of breaches depend on weak or stolen passwords. MFA was missing in 80% of cases of business email compromise before the attacks occurred.

We implement network segmentation to isolate POS systems from other business networks, endpoint protection to prevent malware, encrypted payment processing, and monitoring for suspicious activity. We also ensure your POS configurations meet PCI DSS requirements for secure payment handling.

BEERSOFT provides incident response support - identifying the breach, containing the damage, and restoring operations. We help you meet notification requirements under PIPEDA (Canada) or applicable US state laws, communicate with affected customers, and implement measures to prevent recurrence. Average breach lifecycle is 292 days without professional response - we dramatically shorten that timeline.

Yes we can. As employee training is a major factor in preventing breaches considering 82% of them result from human error, employee training is essential. BEERSOFT offers security awareness training that includes phishing recognition, password best practices, safe browsing habits, and incident reporting. Additionally, we carry out phishing simulations to check and strengthen the effectiveness of the training.

The cost depends on the size, complexity, and level of service of the brewery. Prices for security assessments range from $1,500 to $5,000. Managed security services for the running usually cost from $300 to $1,500 per month. A fully-fledged security program encompassing monitoring, training, and incident response is priced $1,500-$5,000 per month. Please, get in touch with us for a quotation made for your breweries specific needs.

You can reach out to us for a no cost consultation. We will talk about your present security, compliance requirements, and areas of concern. After that, we will propose a security assessment to uncover vulnerabilities and create a protection plan for your brewery, taproom, or beverage brand - whether you’re located in the United States or Canada.