PCI DSS Standard

Payment cards like credit and debit were designed to ease the payment option for the user whenever, wherever they pay; even when they don't have enough credit, they can pay in advance. PCI DSS – Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a cyber security standard designed for the secured payment environment from payment cards.

This standard defines a term named ‘cardholder data that includes the user's full primary account number (PAN) with other elements like service code, cardholder name, and expiration date. This sensitive authentication data is protected and prevented from thefts by CVV2, magnetic stripe data, CVC2, CID, CAV2, PINs and PIN blocks, etc.

PCI DSS is a data security standard for companies that process, transmit and store credit & debit card information in a secure environment. It came into existence on 7 September 2006 to improve account security and PCI standard throughout the transaction process.

This standard was maintained, managed, and administered by independent card bodies like Master card, Visa, Discover, American Express, JCB, and PCI CSS (PCI Security Standards Council).

It focuses on improving payment account security throughout the transaction process. Regardless number or size of the transaction, this standard is applied to any organization that handles all the card holders. All the documents regarding PCI DSS are available on the PCI Security Standard Council Website.

Requirement of PCI DSS

PCI DSS standards have operational and technical requirements that protect cardholder data. It has six main goals with 12 requirements for an enterprise to comply with.

• Secure network
  • A firewall is installed and maintained
  •  to secure the data in the system.
  • The system's password must be new/original but not vendor supplies and regularly changed with time.
• Secure cardholder data
  • It secures all the credentials of the cardholder.
  • Encrypt the transaction detail of the cardholder across a public network.
• Vulnerability management
  • To handle all kinds of vulnerabilities, the user must use antivirus software and regularly update it.
  • Eligible for protecting from unwanted attacks by developing and maintaining secured applications for the system.
• Access control
  • Every user is assigned a unique ID for computer access.
  • Openly sharing cardholder data is a crime and is restricted to a business need-to-know basis.
  • It restricts physical access to cardholder data.
• Network monitoring  and testing
  • Here system network is monitored by regular testing of security processes and systems.
  • Network resources and cardholder data access must be monitored and tracked.
• Information Security
  • Under this, information security policies must be maintained.

Levels of PCI DSS Compliance

Depending on the number of credit or debit card transactions in a business annually, this standard is divided into four levels that determine the need of an enterprise to do such things to remain complaint.

Level 1	This is the first compliance level applied to the business where merchants process more than six million real-world debit or credit card transactions annually. In a company, PCI compliance is only conducted by an authorized PCI auditor, who has undergone an internal audit once a year. PCI auditors annually submit a PCI scan by an approved scanning vendor (ASV).
Level 2	This section applies to the merchants who process between one to six million real-world debit or credit card transactions annually. They must also complete an assessment using the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SQA) once a year. It also requires a quarterly PCI scan.
Level 3	This level is applied to merchants who process e-commerce transactions between 20,000 and one million annually. Same as level 2, they also do an assessment using SQA and require a PCI scan quarterly.
Level 4	This level applies to those merchants who process less than 20,000 or up to one million transactions. They must complete an assessment using the Self-Assessment Questionnaire and require a quarterly PCI scan.

PCI DSS Certification

PCI certification provides information to the customers that their business is safe to transact with and is legal security of card data at the business attained with a set of set requirements established by PCI SSC, which include:

• Using antivirusantivirus software
• Encryption of data transmission
• Installation of firewalls

It can allow the business to restrict cardholder data access and monitor that access to network resources. Avoidance of compliance may result in the company in big loss as non-compliance costs in monetary and reputational terms may convince any business holder to have data security as mandatory. PCI DSS protect against data breaches, responsible for revealing sensitive customer information regarding their transactions of cards. This information negatively impacts business, diminishes sales and fines from payment card issuers, and severely damages reputation and lawsuits.

When a business counter a data breach, it must cease accepting credit card transactions or pay high consequences charges (more than the initial cost of security compliance). Every company/ business must invest in PCI security for safe e-commerce from malicious online actors. 

Some of the important Benefits of PCI Compliance

Here are some of the major benefits of compliance without the serious and long-term damage that can arise:

• PCI Compliance makes the system secure and trustworthy for customers with sensitive payment card information. With this, a business attains customer trust and more n more customers.
• Its 100% security to transactions takes the business reputation and payment brands to the next level needed by business partners too.
• This compliance complies with additional regulations like SOX, HIPPA, and others.
• It is a safety platform that contributes to global payment card data security solutions and a continuous process that prevents security breaches in card payment transactions from data theft in the present and future.
• This compliance improves IT infrastructure efficiency by contributing to corporate security strategies even from a starting point.

DIFFICULTIES POSED BY PCI NON-COMPLIANCE

Protection of customers with PCI compliance should be continuous until they remain customers by the end. Even after meeting all the requirements of customers and products, the business can't risk leaking customers' sensitive information. Due to PCI Noncompliance company has to deal with major destruction issues that include:

• Compromising data and breaching security hurt merchants, customers, and financial institutions.
• PCI non-compliance is a red alert for the company's reputation and ability to conduct effective business today and in the future.
• Loss of relationships, sales, having depressed share prices of the company, and community standing happen due to account data breaches.
• Failing compliance results in lawsuits, payment card issuer fines, insurance claims, government fines, and canceled accounts.

Conclusion

Maintaining and using PCI Compliance for protecting data is a challenge for the company; therefore, the company should choose the right software and services for managing and protecting data, company/ business should use data loss prevention software that classifies data and make it useful for the user with the assurance that cardholder data is secure.

Payment card industry data security standards are designed for the company to provide security to the customers for accepting, processing, storing, and transmitting credit card information by setting some guidelines regardless of size and number of transactions. Several organizations are spending on industries that comply with these standards.

From the day of implementation of PCI Standard till now, it has gone through several iterations to keep itself updated in this online threat landscape. New additions occur periodically with the change in technology and the need for requirements.