Skip to main content

PCI DSS Compliance

 

The PCI Digital Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of internationally-recognized security standards that exist to protect the sensitive data associated with payment accounts. These standards apply to any organization or other entity that manages cardholder data.

As of March 2022, PCI DSS v4.0 is the most current version of these standards, though v3.2.1 will remain valid until the end of March 2024. PCI DSS defines 12 requirements, testing procedures for each requirement and guidance on best practices for implementation. 

To be PCI compliant, an organization must implement and maintain security practices that meet or exceed these standards. 

Why is PCI Compliance Important?

Whether you're a large or small business, if you are a merchant who accepts credit card payments, or are a service provider to merchants, your organization is responsible and must protect payment cardholder data through PCI security standards and PCI services.

With security breaches and cybercrimes considered commonplace, adhering to PCI Data Security Standards is critical to keeping your customers’ payment card data safe and secure.

Help protect your business against loss of customers, brand erosion, litigations, and huge monetary losses by becoming PCI compliant.

RSI Security will help you get through the compliance process in an efficient and thorough manner, leaving you with the peace of mind that your data is secure and, more importantly, that your customers' data is secure.

Understanding the Requirements

The first step to becoming PCI compliant is understanding the requirements. The 12 requirements are distributed across six goals:

  1. Build and maintain secure networks and systems by implementing network security controls and secure system configurations.
  2. Protect cardholder data by securing stored data and using cryptography during data transmission.
  3. Implement a vulnerability management program designed to protect systems against malware and ensure secure internal development practices.
  4. Implement robust access controls by restricting access to systems and data following the need-to-know principle, following user identification and authentication best practices, and restricting physical access to systems and cardholder data.
  5. Regularly monitor and test system and network security and maintain and protect logs and test reports.
  6. Implement and maintain a security policy that defines norms and expectations across the organization.

Understanding these standards allows each organization to design a custom approach to security that aligns with internal needs and resources while pursuing compliance.

Implementing the Requirements

The PCI Security Standards Council recommends a three-step process for achieving PCI compliance:

Assess – Start by taking inventory. Identify any sensitive cardholder data, processes, and assets associated with the payment processes. Check them for security vulnerabilities and keep clear records of any issues that are found.

Remediate – Follow the requirements to improve security. It's recommended to focus on eliminating security vulnerabilities and ceasing the storage of sensitive data to whatever extent is possible.

Report – Document the entire process to produce the required reports, then submit them to the applicable financial institutions or card brands to achieve PCI certification.

Specific requirements may vary, so it's best to confirm procedures with specific financial institutions and card brands to ensure a smooth validation process.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Black swan

A  black swan event  is an incident that occurs randomly and unexpectedly and has wide-spread ramifications. The event is usually followed with reflection and a flawed rationalization that it was inevitable. The phrase illustrates the frailty of inductive reasoning and the danger of making sweeping generalizations from limited observations. The term came from the idea that if a man saw a thousand swans and they were all white, he might logically conclude that all swans are white. The flaw in his logic is that even when the premises are true, the conclusion can still be false. In other words, just because the man has never seen a black swan, it does not mean they do not exist. As Dutch explorers discovered in 1697, black swans are simply outliers -- rare birds, unknown to Europeans until Willem de Vlamingh and his crew visited Australia. Statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb uses the phrase black swan as a metaphor for how humans deal with unpredictable events in his 2007...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a computer chip that performs rapid mathematical calculations, primarily for the purpose of rendering images. A GPU may be found integrated with a central processing unit (CPU) on the same circuit, on a graphics card or in the motherboard of a personal computer or server. In the early days of computing, the CPU performed these calculations. As more graphics-intensive applications such as AutoCAD were developed; however, their demands put strain on the CPU and degraded performance. GPUs came about as a way to offload those tasks from CPUs, freeing up their processing power. NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and ARM are some of the major players in the GPU market. GPU vs. CPU A graphics processing unit is able to render images more quickly than a central processing unit because of its parallel processing architecture, which allows it to perform multiple calculations at the same time. A single CPU does not have this capability, although multi...
Post a Comment
Read more

6G (sixth-generation wireless)

6G (sixth-generation wireless) is the successor to 5G cellular technology. 6G networks will be able to use higher frequencies than 5G networks and provide substantially higher capacity and much lower latency. One of the goals of the 6G Internet will be to support one micro-second latency communications, representing 1,000 times faster -- or 1/1000th the latency -- than one millisecond throughput. The 6G technology market is expected to facilitate large improvements in the areas of imaging, presence technology and location awareness. Working in conjunction with AI, the computational infrastructure of 6G will be able to autonomously determine the best location for computing to occur; this includes decisions about data storage, processing and sharing.  Advantages of 6G over 5G 6G is expected to support 1 terabyte per second (Tbps) speeds. This level of capacity and latency will be unprecedented and wi...
Post a Comment
Read more