Important Facts about PCI-DSS
You may hear about “PCI Compliance”, “PCI-DSS secured Apps” or "PCI” terms before. But you may not be aware of what PCI-DSS is and how it is important in today's digital world.
So, this article will clear out your gray areas about this topic quickly and easily.
Payment Card Industry Data Security or PCI-DSS consists of standards that ensure the safety cardholder data across the world. These policies and procedures are defined in 2004 by the PCI Security Standards Council. They serve the organizations and people who work with cardholder data. Current standard documents can be found on the Councils website.
Who should follow these standards?
✓ Hardware and Software Developers
✓ And whoever involving in processing, transferring, and storing cardholder data.
The Basics of PCI Compliance
Many organizations think that compliance is a one-time activity. No, it’s not. PCI Compliance is a continuous process.
Mainly, PCI compliance consists of 12 standards. These will apply to any business that employs in credit/debit card data regardless of the size of the business or location.
Below mentioned data should be protected which includes the following:
✓ CAV2, CVC2, CVV2, CID (the security digits on the back of credit cards)
✓ Full magnetic stripe data
Four levels exist for the standard. These levels are divided based on the annual number of credit/debit card transactions a business processes.
✓ Level1: Merchants who process more than six million VISA transactions per year fall into this category.
✓ Level 2: Merchants who process transactions between 1 to 6 million VISA transactions per year fall into this level.
✓ Level 3: Merchants who process transactions between 20 000 to 1 million VISA e-commerce transactions per year is fall into this level.
✓ Level 4: Applies to merchants processing fewer than 20,000 VISA e-commerce transactions annually, or those that process up to one million real-world transactions
Each level has its requirements that are needed to fulfill by the merchants.
How do I become a PCI-DSS Compliant?
If you want to become a PCI complaint merchant or an organization, you need to follow twelve requirements.
Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data.
Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.
Protect stored cardholder data.
Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.
Protect all systems against malware and regularly update anti-virus software or programs.
Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
Restrict access to cardholder data by business justification.
Identify and authenticate access to system components.
Restrict physical access to cardholder data.
Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.
Regularly test security systems and processes.
Maintain a policy that addresses information security for all personnel.
Why Security is important?
Everybody needs to know about cardholder data security and it affects and who is in the digital payment industry.
If you are a merchant who accepts digital transactions then you need to ensure that the customers' card details are secured with your payment channels. When you are a payment app developer or financial institution who runs a payment app, then you all should protect customers’ card details when processing, storing and transmitting with other parties.
If the financial institutions or merchants do not follow the secure methods when transacting, customers will complain about the payment channels. When your application is unstable and not securing the customers' card details, then you will lose the credibility you have built through the community. Sometimes your business will fail because of your careless mistakes when joining with payment vendors and other parties involved in customer data handling.
As you know, PCI requirements are not “one-and-done” requirements. You need to maintain your data security every day.
