Walmart Mexico Battles Cyber Threats With Leading Tech

Q: How has Mexico’s cybersecurity threat landscape informed Walmart Mexico’s security strategy for 2023?

A: Walmart Mexico’s strategic business and investment decisions are derived from a customer-centric objective to provide the means, services and added-value to help them live a better life. Our technology and information security areas are focusing on mitigating the risks derived from a hyperconnected digital economy and a continually expanding enterprise attack surface. To avoid compromising business agility, the company has chosen to invest in leading edge technologies and approaches that allow for an immediate response to threats, while allowing to build a foundation for future cybersecurity infrastructure and practices. 

Q: As Walmart Mexico expands into new business lines that requires fundamental technology support, how are the company’s information security priorities changing?

A: In one way or another, irrespective of industry and size, all businesses have been forced to evolve from technology users to technology companies. For Walmart Mexico, this began with significant investment aimed at enhancing connectivity for consumers and increasing operational effectiveness. As we connected to more channels and devices, complexity and cybersecurity risk-management demanded the integration of digital assets for a lean and agile technology foundation. Second to this priority has been a conscientious effort to strengthen the first line of defense of our cybersecurity’s ecosystem: talent, the most commonly underestimated cybersecurity vulnerability. To circumvent their risk potential, Walmart Mexico has invested in awareness training and made all associates a part of our information security approach, transforming them into active elements of our cybersecurity landscape. Finally, we have also leveraged our global presence to learn internally and externally of threats, patterns and potential vulnerabilities that may help fortify our security posture even as cyberattacks continue to evolve. 

Q: Most of Walmart’s security operations are in-house. Has the company found it easier or more challenging to consolidate its global enterprise security?

A: Internally, Walmart Mexico invests a great deal of energy in building the next generation of technology that we anticipate will support our focus on customer value and our business strategy. We are not looking to reinvent the wheel. Rather, we often seek out third-party cybersecurity vendors for specialized problems outside our area of expertise when necessary. Most of the time, however, this is unnecessary because Walmart Mexico is able to leverage digital and technology innovations from its larger global operations. As an enterprise, the company has placed particular importance on building a culture that inspires and allows for the continued development of technologies and best practices to better serve associates and customers. This strategy has allowed the company to remain a global leader in information security practices despite an increasingly hostile digital landscape. 

Q: Does Walmart Mexico have ambitions to migrate toward Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)  and what reservations does it have about this security approach?

A: Answering independently from Walmart Mexico and as a cybersecurity expert, it has become evident that traditional cybersecurity methods and controls have become obsolete as enterprise digital ecosystems continue to expand with increasing hyperconnectivity. Most recently, companies have learned that locking and fortifying all points of entry just because they can is largely inefficient and ultimately doomed to fail. This discovery has motivated companies to adopt a preventative cybersecurity stance, providing additional oversight and security tools to oversee an organization’s most valuable assets and vulnerable points of entry. SASE is one example of such an approach that coincides with the security needs of a multicloud environment but it is comparably immature when compared to other established security strategies.

Walmart is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores.