Any business that acknowledges Credit Card payments should be compliant with the directions and guidelines set out by the Payment Card Industry or be what is called ‘PCI compliant’. This is not commonly understood but any merchant, despite of the number of transactions, which acknowledges or conveys any cardholder information, either by phone or electronically must be PCI compliant. It’s all about holding customer’s facts and figures safe and not leaving your business revealed to hackers. And with an ever expanding use of cards, be they debit or Credit Cards, this is evolving a very important theme.
What do you signify by PCI?: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to double-check that all companies that method, shop or transmit credit card data sustain a protected environment. Consider your answers to the following inquiries? Is virus protection up-to-date and provided by a reputable business? Are the latest programs modifications, such as security patches, in place for the functioning scheme? Is ample firewall protection installed and up-to-date? If the answer to any of these is ‘No’ or you are not sure, then you may not be PCI compliant and you need to get that sorted as a priority. There is a particular problem for any older schemes running on Microsoft Windows Server or Workstation 2000. This Operating System is no longer sustained by Microsoft and no farther security revisions are available. It is furthermore effectively unrealistic to get an anti-virus package that works on it. If you have one of these schemes, it will need to be updated/replaced as a matter of urgency.
A bit of annals of PCI: The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) was commenced on 7 September 2006 to manage the ongoing evolution of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security measures with aim on advancing payment account security all through the transaction method. The PCI DSS is administered and organized by the PCI SSC (pcisecuritystandards.org), an independent body that was created by the foremost fee business card brands (Visa, MasterCard, American Express and others). All merchants if small or large should be PCI compliant.
Do I have to?: Numerous small to intermediate dimensions businesses do not believe they have to be compliant. Even if you only accept Credit Cards over the phone, you should still be PCI Compliant. And using a third-party company it does not exclude a company from PCI compliance. It may cut down on their risk exposure and consequently reduce the effort to validate compliance. However, it does not signify they can disregard PCI.
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