Posts Tagged ‘PCI Compliance’

This guest blog comes to us from Spark::red, a featured member of the SoftLayer Technology Partners Marketplace. Spark::red is a global PCI Level 1 compliant hosting provider specializing in Oracle ATG Commerce. With full-redundancy at every layer, powerful servers, and knowledgeable architects, Spark::red delivers exceptional environments in weeks, instead of months. In this video we talk to Spark::red co-founder Devon Hillard about what Spark::red does, how they help companies that are outgrowing current solutions, and why they chose SoftLayer.

The Three Most Common PCI Compliance Myths

As a hosting provider that specializes in Oracle ATG Commerce, Spark::red has extensive experience and expertise when it comes to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). If you’re not familiar with PCI DSS, they are standards imposed on companies that process payment data, and they are designed to protect the company and its customers.

We’ve been helping online businesses maintain PCI Compliance for several years now, and in that time, we’ve encountered a great deal of confusion and misinformation when it comes to compliance. Despite numerous documents and articles available on this topic, we’ve found that three myths seem to persist when it comes to PCI DSS compliance. Consider us the PCI DSS compliance mythbusters.

Myth 1: Only large enterprise-level businesses are required to be PCI Compliant.

According to PCI DSS, every company involved in payment card processing online or offline should be PCI Compliant. The list of those companies includes e-commerce businesses of all sizes, banks and web hosting providers. It’s important to note that I said, “should be PCI Compliant” here. There is no federal law that makes PCI compliance a legal requirement. However, a business IS required to be PCI compliant technically in order to take and process Visa or MasterCard payments. Failure to operate in with PCI compliance could mean huge fees if you’re found in violation after a breach.

Payment card data security is the most significant concern for cardholders, and it should be a priority for your business, whether you have two hundred customers or two million customers. If you’re processing ANY credit card payments, you should make sure you are PCI-compliant.

There are four levels of PCI compliance based on the number of credit card transactions your business processes a year, so the PCI compliance process is going to look different for small, medium-sized and large businesses. Visit the PCI Security Standards Council website to check which level of PCI compliance your business needs.

Myth 1: Busted.

Click to read the other two major PCI Compliance myths. »

I know you already know everything about PCI compliance, especially the if’s, and’s, and but’s that go along with it. But, just in case you forgot, here it is in a nutshell.
Is PCI compliance a Federal law? Nope! Not yet anyway. Some states do make it a crime to let credit card data “be” stolen.
What is PCI? It is actually PCI DSS and it stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
Who needs it? Anyone that accepts, transmits, or stores ANY credit card data.
Are there different levels? Yes, I am glad you asked.

• Level 4 – Any merchant processing fewer than 20,000 credit card e-commerce transactions in a 12 month period
• Level 3 – 20,000 up to 1 Million transactions
• Level 2 – 1 Million up to 6 Million
• Level 1 – 6 million + (or any merchant that Visa feels should meet level 1 to minimize risks) This is what we are all striving for, right?

Who cares if you are PCI compliant? For starters, YOU should! And secondly, your merchant bank will care. They will care more the larger you get. See minimize risks statement above.
Since it isn’t a federal law should I risk it, because I know my security and I am impenetrable? I wouldn’t take that risk because you can still pay fines, card replacement costs, and pay for forensic audits, etc if someone were to get in and steal data.
How can SoftLayer help? For starters and a quick level 4 fix you can go here and get free scanning on a single IP. Combine that with a “quick” questionnaire about your physical and data security policies and voila, no onsite visit needed and you are now PCI Level 4. Mcafee can help you with you higher level compliance if you would like. Don’t take the questionnaire too lightly because remember you do care about PCI!
Ok so if you have made it this far then you must like boring reading. Go read this. It might come in handy someday. It is the “do this if you get hacked” cheat sheet.
On to 2010! MasterCard stepped up in 2009 and stated that even their Level 2 merchants had to have an onsite QSA assessment by December 31, 2010. That has now been pushed to June 30, 2011. There seems to be some confusion from the other Credit Card companies and they didn’t all jump on board. One thing that they did all agree on is that you can’t put credit card info on WEP secured wireless at all after July 2010. Just don’t do it! And don’t use old un-patched payment applications because they are insecure and will not be allowed after July as well.
This could all change just like Texas weather. If you don’t like the new rules, then just wait a couple of days and they may change it more to your liking. There are still a few things they are looking at going forward that I will let you in on and then I assure you I will stop typing. PCI 1.2 is still about stopping hackers from getting in, there is a new interest in the community on addressing “internal” hackers. The current focus of PCI is aimed at card data “after” authorization but doesn’t say much about card data that is kept prior to authorization, so you can bet that will be added soon too and of course cloud infrastructure and card data has to be on everyone’s radar screen soon.