The Payment Card Industry Compliance is a set of standards that help retailers and merchants to more securely process credit card transactions. The PCI standard contains 12 main requirements that are split into four categories- Security Officers, Employees, Vendors, and Merchants. The goal of this is to make sure that all companies using or storing any form of payment data comply with certain security practices in order to prevent fraudulent activity such as skimming and hacking from happening. With these guidelines in place, it can be significantly easier for customers to feel confident when making purchases online or over the phone.
The Payment Card Industry Compliance is a set of standards that help retailers and merchants to more securely process credit card transactions. It is important that businesses comply with all requirements. The PCI standard contains 12 main requirements that are split into four categories- Security Officers, Employees, Vendors, and Merchants.
The purpose of the PCI DSS compliance requirement is to reduce the risk for companies in the event of a data breach by ensuring they have appropriate levels of security and controls in place. When you become compliant with these standards, your company will be protected from fines or penalties if it suffers an attack because it has taken steps to protect customer information.
PCI compliance can be achieved through various methods such as annual self-audit programs; quarterly network scans; monthly vulnerability assessments; inclusion in external penetration tests or by hiring a QSA (Qualified Security Assessor).
The following are the 12 requirements of PCI compliance:
- Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data.
- Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords, such as “0000” as well as other default security parameters. Also, be sure to implement strong passwords. These passwords should not be left out in the open or shared over open networks. Also do not use names of staff, pets, etc. Passwords should be strong, using a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols.
- Protect stored cardholder data.
- Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.
- Protect stored cardholder data by using encryption.
- Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.
- Use and regularly update the antivirus software on all systems commonly. Do not rely on free trials to adequately protect your system data as well as private information.
- Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
- Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.
- Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access (e.g., user ID, service account).
- Restrict physical access to cardholder data.
- Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data by monitoring logs and alerts.
- Regularly test security systems and processes (penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, auditing, etc.).
- Maintain a policy that addresses information security.
Why It is Important that A Business Becomes PCI Compliant?
The Payment Card Industry Compliance has been very beneficial for credit card processing companies so they can improve their security measures against fraud and illegal transactions. This is why it’s so important for a business to understand compliance requirements, especially if your company is handling large amounts of data from customers or clients. By ensuring you have adequate protection against fraud and cyber-attacks, you’re reducing the likelihood that your business will be compromised in the future because complying with this standard means there are fewer chances that someone will gain access to any sensitive information. A few of the benefits include:
- It helps protect customer data making it harder for companies to be targeted by hackers and other bad actors looking for credit card information.
- Being part of the team that’s ensuring the protection of consumer data helps legitimize your brand as one that cares deeply about its customers’ safety and security measures within the payment process. This will lead to more sales conversions due to increased trust with consumers.
- If you suffer a hack or data breach, being PCI compliant will help reduce your fines since you will have shown that your company had adequate security protection in place.
As illustrated above, PCI compliance has 12 main requirements. As you can see, there are many things to consider when becoming PCI compliant. If a business wants increased trust with consumers and less financial risk in the event of a data breach, it is important to ensure you are following all of the PCI compliance standards. This will make it harder for bad actors looking for credit card information while legitimizing your brand as one that cares deeply about its customers’ safety and security measures within the payment process. These reasons alone make getting PCI compliant very beneficial for any company.