Retailers are under enormous pressure to deliver faster, more seamless customer experiences. From frictionless checkout and real-time inventory visibility to digital signage and personalized promotions, edge computing is at the heart of modern retail operations. But while edge devices unlock innovation, they also introduce new risks. Every POS terminal, kiosk, and smart sensor deployed on the sales floor becomes another endpoint that needs protection. Without proactive safeguards, these assets can quickly become vulnerabilities.
The Growth and Risk of Retail Edge
By 2025, more than 75% of enterprise data will be processed outside traditional data centers and clouds, up from less than 10% in 2019.
Global investment in edge infrastructure is also expected to reach $350 billion by 2027.
For retail, this means explosive growth in connected devices across stores: self-checkouts, mobile scanners, in-store cameras, and IoT sensors that track everything from customer traffic to refrigeration. But these devices often operate in unattended, decentralized environments, making them harder to monitor, patch, and secure.
Why Retail Edge Is So Vulnerable
Unlike centralized IT systems, retail edge devices are widely distributed across hundreds or thousands of stores. They are physically exposed, with kiosks, scanners, and signage accessible to customers. They are also inconsistent in management, often running on outdated firmware or legacy POS systems.
Traditional perimeter defenses can’t keep pace. A single unpatched POS terminal or unsecured kiosk can open the door to significant breaches.
Building Trust by Design
To secure the edge, retailers need to embed trust into the infrastructure itself. This means rethinking how devices are provisioned, monitored, and protected, including:
- Hardware Root of Trust to ensure only verified firmware and software run on edge devices.
- Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) to securely enroll devices at scale using encrypted onboarding methods like FIDO Device Onboarding.
- Out-of-Band Management to keep recovery and diagnostics available even when devices lose connectivity.
- Microsegmentation and TLS Encryption to safeguard communication between edge devices and backend systems.
These safeguards move retailers from a reactive posture, responding to breaches after they happen, to a proactive one, where risk is minimized at every layer.
AI as a Forcing Function
Many retailers are already deploying AI at the edge, whether through loss prevention analytics scanning video feeds in real time or predictive inventory systems that track purchasing trends. But these projects often expose gaps: unpatched handheld scanners, under-monitored cameras, or outdated kiosks.
In this way, AI becomes a catalyst for better edge security. By surfacing weak points in infrastructure, it forces IT leaders to modernize how devices are managed and secured.
The Business Case for Securing the Edge
Investing in edge security isn’t just about reducing risk, it directly improves store performance and customer trust with:
- Higher system availability that keeps checkouts running and signage active.
- Stronger customer confidence that comes from protecting payment, loyalty, and behavioral data (KPMG Consumer Loss Barometer).
- Operational efficiency that grows when IT teams automate patching and streamline management across hundreds of locations.
Why Connection?
At Connection, we bring decades of retail IT expertise and strong partnerships with leading technology providers like Dell, Cisco, and NVIDIA. We’ve helped national retailers secure POS systems, IoT networks, and large-scale edge deployments. Our frameworks for automation and trust-by-design give IT teams the tools they need to scale securely across the store footprint.
Final Takeaway
Edge computing is powering the next generation of retail innovation, but innovation without security is a risk no retailer can afford. By embedding trust into every device and making edge security a measurable priority, retailers can transform their infrastructure into a platform for customer experience, efficiency, and growth.
Brian Gallagher
Brian is the Retail Strategy & Business Development Director at Connection. Brian joined Connection in 2016 as the Retail subject matter expert (SME) after leading National Store Operations teams for more than 20 years. Brian has a deep understanding of today’s Store Experience and Customer Engagement solutions requirements and works collaboratively with customers and partners to create complete business solutions to drive customer engagement and revenues. Outside of work, he enjoys traveling with his wife and cheering on the Cleveland Indians.
