Earning the trust of your customers may be one of the best things you can do for your business. The reason here is based on the current state of paranoia and doubts about the use of credit cards or any other transaction that involves the use of personal information.
PCI DSS compliance is required of any merchant that stores, processes, or transmits sensitive information. The payment card industry saw what was happening with this change in consumer mood and knew they had to start enforcing this standard or start to see the integrity of their industry begin to crumble.
There are 12 requirements for PCI DSS compliance. Many of these requirements can be broken down into more than 200 individual security requirements. Some are obvious and easy to implement. Others will require much more in terms of time, money and other resources. However, they are equally important and necessary for a more complete security package. PCI DSS compliance is the best way to ensure the security of your system and the trust of your customers.
Requirement One: Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data. One of the most basic steps in defending your confidential information is to control the traffic that enters or leaves your system. A firewall is a device that allows you to do this.
Requirement two: Do not use vendor-supplied default values for system passwords and other security parameters. These passwords are well known throughout the hacker community. Using these passwords is the equivalent of leaving the door wide open and putting up a neon sign announcing “Valuables inside. Please come in.”
Requirement three: Protect cardholder data. A fairly broad topic, but it gets to the heart of the situation. Encryption and data storage requirements are included here.
Requirement Four: Encrypt data transmission over open public networks. Hackers may try to steal or manipulate your data while it is in transit.
Requirement Five: Use and regularly update antivirus software. Not all malicious threats to your system are intentional. Viruses can enter your system in a variety of ways, and antivirus programs should be up to the task of removing them all.
Requirement Six: Develop and maintain secure systems and applications. Sometimes a program has some flaws that can allow unauthorized access to your system. It must be kept up to date with the necessary patches to correct those defects.
Requirement Seven: Restrict access to cardholder data based on business need to know. The more people who can access the data, the more likely it is that the information will be leaked. Only certain people need to see the data, and you should be restricted to them.
Requirement Eight: Assign a unique ID to each person with access to the computer. This helps ensure that sensitive information is only accessible to the right people, and should a problem occur, it will be easier to trace the source of the problem.
Requirement Nine: Restrict physical access to cardholder data. You don’t want to let anyone keep hard copies or even the entire system.
Requirement Ten: Track and monitor all access to network resources and car owner data. By actively monitoring and tracking your system, you can actively find and resolve any issues before someone can exploit it.
Requirement Eleven: Regularly test security systems and processes. Discover your vulnerabilities before the criminals do. This is the best way to continually improve your system.
Requirement Twelve: Maintain a policy that addresses information security for employees and contractors. Everyone must understand these policies and measures, and their own responsibility towards them.
PCI DSS compliance is not necessarily a simple thing to achieve, nor will it happen overnight. PCI DSS compliance is, however, good business sense for you Y Your clients.