The fashion industry has become the latest target of cybercriminals as major fashion brands experienced data breaches over the past months. According to a BBC report, North Face informed their customers that hackers may have gained access to their purchase histories and shipping addresses back in April 2025. Luxury jeweller Cartier also reported having their data stolen, saying that an unauthorized party has temporarily gained access to their system.
Experts say that retailers have become easy targets for attackers since these companies have a wealth of customer information in their data systems. For fashion brands, the consequences of stolen data can be devastating since it can lead to financial losses, operational downtime, and reputational damage. Whether you’re running a luxury brand, an independent clothing line, or an online boutique, data management should always be a priority to prevent threat actors from stealing your data. Here are some essential cybersecurity strategies to protect your fashion brand.
Guard Against AI-Powered Threats
The Cartier breach proves that even brands with the strongest cybersecurity systems are not safe from hackers. Although security software technology has advanced over the past years, cybercriminals are keeping up with the upgrades and are successfully breaching even the most impenetrable systems across various industries. One thing that fashion brands should be on the lookout for is artificial intelligence-powered threats as hackers have found ways to weaponize AI to make traditional cybersecurity systems obsolete.
Currently, there are dozens of ongoing legal cases against AI tech as it poses unnecessary threats to privacy, especially since it can use sensitive data to memorize information about people. Some may argue that AI poses no danger to the fashion industry, especially since certain brands are already using artificial intelligence to predict trends or generate content for marketing purposes. But when hackers use AI to steal from retailers, it can make the job easier, so threat actors can cause damage on a wider scale. Since AI-generated malware can evolve to escape detection, fashion brands could be unknowingly leaking sensitive data and losing money at the same time. Also, AI can cause direct harm to customers since it can predict when they’ll click on marketing posts or open and respond to emails. This allows cybercriminals to determine the right time to send emails to optimize their scams and phishing attacks.
To protect your fashion brand against AI-powered threats, you’ll need to fight it with AI-leveraged security tools that can detect new threats and suspicious activities in network traffic. Fighting AI with AI gives you instant information on how the malware or phishing incident happened since artificial intelligence can read and analyze data faster than humans. Apart from using AI security software, integrating firewalls into your systems can also help to stay on top of AI-generated threats.
Strengthen the Shared Cloud
Many fashion houses have global headquarters and customer service hubs across different parts of the world. For example, Adidas has its main headquarters in Germany, but it also has offices in the USA, Dubai, China, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands. Meanwhile, Louis Vuitton’s headquarters is in Paris, but it also has office locations in major cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Shanghai, and Seoul. To facilitate collaboration among all the global hubs, most fashion brands use a shared cloud service to share and work on documents or designs together, but its remote nature and poor access controls make cloud storage extremely vulnerable to hacking.
The recent Neiman Marcus data breach is a prime example of cloud storage hacking incidents in the fashion world. In June 2024, the high end fashion retailer revealed that their Snowflake storage account had been compromised. In an official statement, Neiman Marcus said that based on their investigation, “the unauthorized third party obtained personal information stored in the database platform.” The company also said that the stolen information includes customer’s names, birth dates, and contact information. The threat actor responsible for the breach reportedly put the stolen data up for sale on the dark web, and they also tried to hold the data for ransom, which Neiman Marcus refused to pay.
Fashion brands that use a shared cloud account should take measures to strengthen it to prevent hacking attempts. For secure collaboration, provide user training on safe file sharing and accessing practices, such as using a VPN to access the company’s files when working outside the office. Next, keep files safe by enabling multifactor authentication, and determine which employees can view certain files since not everyone working for your brand needs to see everything in the shared cloud. It’s also recommended to use storage services with the best security and privacy features, so don’t scrimp when it comes to this expense.
Keeping your data safe from threat actors allows you to protect your fashion brand’s finances and reputation. Consider these tips to safeguard your data from hackers and cyber thieves, and seek advise from a cybersecurity professional for more strategies to prevent data breaches.
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