Does your business accept credit cards? Do you need it to? In order to
open your Kentucky and Southern Indiana area small business up to the
enhanced profit potential that accepting credit cards can provide,
you'll need to understand what responsibilities you take on by accepting
these forms of payment. Small businesses are prime targets for data
plunderers. If you don't protect against these thieves, you may be
subject to paying restitution, fines, or lose the ability to accept
cards as payment.
Security Standards
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a compliant
data transfer standardization that is used to ensure the security and
privacy of the transfer of financial information.
It was designed as a standard to ensure that any company that would
process, store, or transmit credit card information maintains the
infrastructural security necessary to provide a secure pathway in which
to transfer financial information.
While PCI DSS is not a law on the books, it is a global and almost
universally accepted set of security protocols that govern the health of
a company's computing integrity in regards to its ability to keep
consumer and vendor financial information safe. The six goals of PCI DSS
are:
1. Create, manage, and maintain a PCI-compliant network. 2. Protect
the data that your organization has acquired. 3. Create and
maintain a plan in which to manage your environment's
vulnerabilities. 4. Implement enhancements to access control
interface. 5. Monitor, manage, and regularly test networks. 6.
Maintain a policy in which to continuously manage your organization's
data security.
PCI DSS also provides merchants with many useful practices that work to
ensure that you aren't short changing your data security protocols.
Security Paradigm for Acceptance of Digital Card Payments
Phase One - Assessment
The primary reasons to assess your technology is to ascertain if it has
vulnerabilities that would pose risks to cardholder security.
Understanding the PCI DSS goals is paramount to this step so you can
look through your hardware and software and consider where there may be
a hole. In order to perform a proper assessment, business owners need to
determine how credit card transactions flow through your computing
system. Only then can you get the answers you need on if, and how, you
will need to alter your IT infrastructure to accommodate for PCI DSS.
Additional resources are available, including:
Self-Assessment Questionnaires - The completion of a
questionnaire that is designed to assist you in determining where you
are, opposed to where you need to be in regards to PCI DSS.
Qualified Assessors - There are professional services
that will test your system to ensure everything is secure and working
properly.
It is essential to understand the processes you use to charge and store
your customer's financial information as it is your responsibility to
keep this information safe.
Phase Two - Remediation
Once you have identified the vulnerabilities, you will have to fix them
in order to avoid the headaches associated with non-compliance. The
remediation process is your organization's chance to expose flaws in its
information storage security and diligently patch those flaws. Argentum
IT's IT technicians can assist your organization in the remediation
process.
Phase Three - Reporting
Once your remediation process is complete, you then must compile your
findings and submit the required remediation validation records and
compliance reports to the acquiring bank and card processing centers.
Every Kentucky and Southern Indiana small business that wants to accept
and store consumer credit card information needs to report a functional
and secure a PCI DSS system in order to be in compliance.
Why be Compliant?
Compliance with the PCI DSS can have serious benefits for businesses of all
sizes, while failure to comply will likely result in negative results.
The benefits include:
Compliant systems are more secure, which present customers an avenue
to develop a stronger bond of trust with your organization.
PCI DSS compliance is not a one time event, rather it is an ongoing
process. When you commit to PCI DSS you are part of the solution. This
attracts the kind of vendors an organization needs to be successful.
With PCI DSS compliance you will be better equipped to comply with
other federal and state mandated data security regulations.
By adhering to compliance standards you will likely identify variables
to streamline your IT infrastructure.
While there are many more benefits of compliance, some of the
detrimental characteristics of a failure to comply with PCI DSS
regulations include:
Compromised data has a tendency to negatively affect consumers,
merchants, and financial institutions.
One negative incident can damage your company's reputation so severely
that you may have trouble conducting business effectively.
You may be inundated with lawsuits, fines from multiple regulatory
organizations, cancelled accounts, and insurance claims.
It's a fact that your company will have a hard time competing without a
solution in place to accept credit cards as a payment. To learn more
about Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance or any
other data security compliance your organization may need, call us today
at (502) 473-9330.
