Realtimecampaign.com Discusses Three Steps to Ensure PCI Compliance
More people than ever have been choosing to shop online instead of in brick-and-mortar stores. This change in customer behavior has led to an increase in data breaches. The major credit card companies have taken action to protect consumers’ payment information by implementing what are known as Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards.
Who Has to Follow the PCI Standards?
According to realtimecampaign.com, these PCI standards now apply to any business that accepts credit cards, regardless of its size, industry, or location. The only exceptions are business owners who process payments exclusively through third-party companies like Delphix that take steps to ensure compliance on their clients’ behalf. Everyone else must take steps to protect consumer data and ensure PCI compliance. The good news is, it’s easier than it might sound.
Step One: Assess Risks
The first step business owners should take is to assess what types of cardholder data they process and which category of compliance the company will fall into. Business owners can get additional info about the four categories of merchants online. They can also read through the full PCI Data Security Standards (DSS) and support documents online to familiarize themselves with the changing industry standards.
During the assessment stage, business owners will take a full inventory of their IT assets and payment processing methodologies to seek out vulnerabilities. Given that Recurring B2B Payments are Driving Payment Modernization, this step will be easier for some companies than for others. Knowing exactly how cardholder data is handled is the first step towards ensuring that it is well protected.
Step Two: Resolve Potential Problems
The next step is to remediate problems with data vulnerabilities. Most businesses also eliminate all stored cardholder data unless there is no way for them to do so without disrupting their business models. Recurring payments make it necessary to maintain cardholder data, but the PCI DSS offers plenty of helpful information about how to protect it.
Step Three: Compile and Submit Required Reports
Once the company is certain that it is in compliance with the current PCI standards, the final step is to submit reports to the bank and credit card companies. These reports prove to financial institutions that the company is handling customer payment information responsibly.
In many cases, the company will need to make quarterly report submissions for network scanning. Some payment card companies also require the submission of additional documentation. To streamline this process and ensure objectivity, many larger companies hire a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) to perform the audits and submit the reports.
PCI security standards were put into place to protect American consumers. They ensure that every company that handles payment data is taking all the necessary steps to protect that data–both while it is being stored and while it’s in transit. Ensuring compliance with the PCI DSS isn’t just a matter of avoiding problems with credit card companies and banks. It’s also the key to protecting the company’s reputation since there’s nothing worse for a business than a highly publicized data breach.
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