The process of becoming PCI Compliant is quite simple and provides businesses with up to $100,000 of data breach protection.
By definition, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a set of requirements designed to ensure that all companies who process, store or transit credit card information maintain a secure environment. What this means is that if you are a business that is accepting credit cards, you are taking the necessary steps to protect you customers valuable payment card data. This applies to businesses that processes 1 transaction a month all the way to businesses that process 100,000 transactions a week.
2014 5,000 + Data Breaches nationwide
92% of breaches occurred in small businesses
Cost of average breach is $100,000
The process of becoming PCI Compliant is quite simple and provides businesses with up to $100,000 of data breach protection. Companies like Trustwave and ControlScan provide tools to self-assess your PCI Compliance with an online portal that takes you step by step through the process. In some cases when transmitting payment data through an internet connection you will also be required to perform a vulnerability scan to ensure that your computer system has the appropriate safeguards in place.
Here at Preferred Payments we ensure that every aspect of the payment process is handled with ease and this includes PCI Compliance as well. We will walk you through every step of the compliance and upon completion you will receive a certificate of compliance. This is as good as gold to a merchant and will be your ticket to breach insurance.
Preferred Payments utilizes encryption tools and techniques to mask original data, then allow it to be decrypted. Encryption uses an algorithm to scramble credit card information that makes the data unreadable to anyone without a proper key. This end-to-end encryption passes confidential credit card data at the point of entry which is then decrypted when the purchaser’s authorized credit card information reaches its intended destination.
Tokenization is the process of replacing sensitive card data with unique identification symbols that retain all the essential information about the card data without compromising its security. This tokenization ensures the security of credit cards and e-commerce transactions while minimizing the cost and complexity of compliance with industry standards and government regulations. Preferred Payments provides tokenization upon request and handles the issuance of the token value and bears the responsibility for keeping the cardholder data locked down.
In 2014, 66% of organizations did not adequately test the security of all in-scope systems
73% of companies reported they had suffered actual or attempted payments fraud in 2015
69% of consumers would be less inclined to do business with a breached organization.
Companies that did not adequately test 66%
Companies that suffered fraud 73%
Customers less inclined to do business 69%
Source: Verizon 2015 PCI Compliance Report - digitaltransactions.net AFP
