The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards designed to protect the data and information of cardholders. It was created by the major credit card companies, including Visa, Mastercard and American Express, in order to ensure that merchants who accept their cards are taking steps to protect customers’ personal information.
The PCI DSS not only helps keep customer data safe but also prevents fraud and other malicious activities from occurring.
The PCI DSS consists of twelve requirements which must be met in order for an organization or merchant to be compliant with the standard.
These requirements include things such as encrypting sensitive data; implementing strong access controls on systems; regularly monitoring networks for unauthorized activity; maintaining up-to-date anti-virus software on all computers; restricting physical access to sensitive areas where customer records are stored; ensuring secure destruction of any old documents containing customer information when no longer needed, etc.
Organizations that fail to meet these criteria risk being fined or having their ability revoked by one or more payment processors if they do not comply with these rules within a certain amount time after notification has been received from them about noncompliance issues found during audits conducted by Qualified Security Assessors (QSA).
Compliance with PCI DSS can help organizations maintain trust among customers while protecting against financial losses due to cyber crimes like identity theft, phishing scams, etc.
It is important for organizations who process payments online using debit/credit cards need understand how implement measures required under this standard so as remain compliant at all times without putting themselves at risk losing business due to the lack of security compliance measures taken place within the company infrastructure environment.