The recent cyberattacks that disrupted operations at major UK retailers such as M&S and Co-op have sent a clear warning to the entire hospitality and retail sector: infrastructure security is not optional; it is essential. When a breach can cost up to £4.3 million per week in lost sales, resilience stops being an IT concern and becomes a board-level responsibility.
At Kappture, security isn’t an afterthought. It is built into every layer of our technology. Our systems are engineered from the ground up to minimise exposure, isolate vulnerabilities, and recover quickly in the face of compromise. Unlike consumer-grade devices or open POS software stacks, our integrated platform, Kappture OS running on K2 hardware, is designed for security and resilience.
Here’s how
Most POS systems are built on consumer operating systems packed with unnecessary services, app stores, browsers, and third-party integrations. Each of these adds risk and increases the attack surface.
Kappture OS takes a different approach. It is a hardened, Linux-based embedded operating system that runs only what is required to deliver our application. There is no browser, no package manager, no app store, no extra user accounts, and no background services waiting to be exploited. The entire root filesystem is under 60MB. This approach doesn’t just reduce the likelihood of an attack; it removes entire categories of them.
Our system boots from a read-only, compressed file system (EROFS). Even if someone gains local access, they cannot modify the OS, inject malware, or tamper with binaries. In an environment where attackers constantly seek persistence, a read-only system is a powerful safeguard.
A factory reset is as simple as clearing the TPM. No downtime, no reimaging, no guesswork.
Typical systems boot through multiple layers such as UEFI, bootloader, and kernel, each of which introduces potential vulnerabilities. Kappture devices boot directly into a signed Linux kernel from the internal SSD. External boot options are completely disabled, both physically and digitally. No USB booting, no PXE attacks, no CD-ROM exploits.
Even with physical access, attackers cannot impersonate the platform or access sensitive data. Encryption keys are stored in a TPM chip and cannot be extracted or moved.
Every K2 device runs Secure Boot with mandatory signature verification of the kernel. There is no option to disable it. If an attacker modifies the kernel, even slightly, the system will not boot.
It is a strict policy, and we enforce it because it works.
Some payment acquirers require platform-side middleware. Instead of opening up our OS to a tangle of third-party runtimes such as Java or Node, we use read-only overlays that run only what is needed in isolation. The base system remains untouched, locked down, performant, and secure.
Our team maintains an automated CVE audit pipeline. Every OS release is scanned against the latest vulnerabilities from MITRE. We patch remotely exploitable vulnerabilities before release, and we proactively patch local-only exploits when they exceed a CVSS score of 7.5 or present a significant risk.
Our clients don’t wait for a breach to find out they were exposed. They are protected from the start.
We don’t just say we are secure, we prove it.
• ISO27001-aligned operational practices
• PCI-DSS compliant transaction processing
• Regular penetration testing by third-party security firms
• Audit logs, update tracking, and remote estate management tools that support real-world security operations
When you build technology for critical environments such as high-volume retail, stadiums, and hospitality, you cannot afford assumptions. You cannot rely on generic platforms designed for casual use.
The difference between a £4.3 million outage and uninterrupted service often comes down to how the edge devices were built.
At Kappture, we build for resilience. We assume adversaries exist. We design our systems to be hard to reach, hard to tamper with, and quick to recover.
Security isn’t just a feature. It’s the architecture.
