PCI Compliance is Essential for All Size Businesses
The Payment Card Industry (PCI) has set Data Security Standards (DSS) designed to make sure any company that accepts, processes, stores or transmits credit cards does so in a secure environment designed to protect cardholders’ personal data. PCI DSS is a global set of standards, and all merchants must be in compliance for the protection of their customers and also for their own protection. When you lose customer trust it’s highly unlikely you will get a chance to recover.
PCI DSS serves all who are involved with payment by credit card including financial institutions, point of sale vendors, merchants, the hardware and software developers who are responsible for creating and maintaining the vast global card payment processing infrastructure. The organization’s mission is to set safety standards. However, it also serves by educating all involved what they need to know to comply with the standards and how to maintain a safe operating environment.
No PCI Compliance Exceptions Based on Business Size
If you’re thinking such standards are only to keep giant corporations secure along with their millions of customers, that’s just not true. The obligation to customer security is shared by all businesses, large and small. A small contractor working from home may process credit card payments from his local customers a maximum of , perhaps, 100 times each year. Their customer data must be as secure as it is at the largest e-commerce site.
Compliance requirements include maintaining a firewall, having protections in place to protect cardholder data, encrypting data during transmission, using secure passwords, keeping antivirus software up to date, making sure your applications are secure, testing your security systems regularly, limiting access to data to a need-to-know basis, and monitoring all access to data, among other safeguards. PCI compliance is essential
For more information on why PCI compliance is essential for all size businesses, or to sign up for a merchant account, please call (888) 924-2743 or go to Charge.com.