As a business owner, accepting payments by credit card is a necessary practice and an easy way to increase revenue. Depending on your type of business, you might see very few credit and debit transactions, while restaurants generally receive more of 75 percent of their payments on plastic. But how secure are all those transactions? And how and where is the data being stored?
PCI DSS might be a term you have heard more frequently lately and it stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. Most business owners see this as a giant hassle in their daily lives as well as another cost that must come out of their pockets. However, these rules and regulations are here to stay and are not to be taken lightly.
These rules have been established by the card brands to protect you and your customer. Visa, MasterCard, American Express and the JCB have all come together to establish a set of requirements to protect card holders and make sure that business owners, managers, and IT professionals are all in compliance in an effort to reduce fraud.
There are now several companies that can help you get certified and also test for PCI DSS compliance for your office, website or storefront. The basics are generally self-explanatory such as making sure your firewalls and security systems are updated on your network.
If you are storing card holder information, it should not be on a computer linked to the Internet, and if you have such information written down, it must be in a locked file folder inside a manager-level office. For the average business owner, this is all fairly common sense, but it can get tricky when dealing with e-commerce websites with shopping carts and third party interfaces.
Your IT professional should be consulted when setting up networks so that possible holes in your security systems can be identified.
Fraud is rampant in the credit card industry. If you haven't had a credit or debit card hacked recently, you may know someone who has.
Criminals are smart, and always one step ahead of the game which makes it even more important to make sure your business is PCI DSS compliant and as secure as possible.
A data breach can literally cause a company to come to a grinding halt, and can also get a business blacklisted, which would not allow them to accept credit cards again.
Fines are steep, and the notification process to all your customers after a breach can run in the tens of thousands of dollars or more. That's just the beginning, legal fees and court costs increase at an alarming rate after a breach as well.
This isn't meant to scare you, but it's important to take the necessary steps to protect the company you have built.
These security standards are in place to help businesses reduce their liabilities when it comes to processing payments. PCI DSS compliance is necessary and is helping create a better business world for anyone who uses credit and debit cards.
Clark can be reached at
[email protected]
PCI DSS might be a term you have heard more frequently lately and it stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. Most business owners see this as a giant hassle in their daily lives as well as another cost that must come out of their pockets. However, these rules and regulations are here to stay and are not to be taken lightly.
These rules have been established by the card brands to protect you and your customer. Visa, MasterCard, American Express and the JCB have all come together to establish a set of requirements to protect card holders and make sure that business owners, managers, and IT professionals are all in compliance in an effort to reduce fraud.
There are now several companies that can help you get certified and also test for PCI DSS compliance for your office, website or storefront. The basics are generally self-explanatory such as making sure your firewalls and security systems are updated on your network.
If you are storing card holder information, it should not be on a computer linked to the Internet, and if you have such information written down, it must be in a locked file folder inside a manager-level office. For the average business owner, this is all fairly common sense, but it can get tricky when dealing with e-commerce websites with shopping carts and third party interfaces.
Your IT professional should be consulted when setting up networks so that possible holes in your security systems can be identified.
Fraud is rampant in the credit card industry. If you haven't had a credit or debit card hacked recently, you may know someone who has.
Criminals are smart, and always one step ahead of the game which makes it even more important to make sure your business is PCI DSS compliant and as secure as possible.
A data breach can literally cause a company to come to a grinding halt, and can also get a business blacklisted, which would not allow them to accept credit cards again.
Fines are steep, and the notification process to all your customers after a breach can run in the tens of thousands of dollars or more. That's just the beginning, legal fees and court costs increase at an alarming rate after a breach as well.
This isn't meant to scare you, but it's important to take the necessary steps to protect the company you have built.
These security standards are in place to help businesses reduce their liabilities when it comes to processing payments. PCI DSS compliance is necessary and is helping create a better business world for anyone who uses credit and debit cards.
Clark can be reached at
[email protected]