Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard

PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. PCI DSS is not a law but a set of guidelines developed by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), which includes major credit card brands like Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB.

The main goal of PCI DSS is to protect cardholder data and reduce the risk of credit card fraud. To achieve this, the standard is organized into six core principles and twelve specific requirements, which must be followed by any organization handling payment card data.

Compliance with PCI DSS is divided into four levels, depending on the number of card transactions processed annually:

• Level 1: Over 6 million transactions per year.
• Level 2: Between 1 million and 6 million transactions per year.
• Level 3: Between 20,000 and 1 million transactions per year.
• Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 transactions per year.

Depending on the level, businesses may be required to perform annual audits, conduct quarterly scans by an Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV), and submit compliance reports.

The part of the business network that handles, stores, or transmits cardholder data. The CDE must be secured and separated from other parts of the network to reduce the risk of exposure.

Credit card data must be encrypted during transmission and storage. PCI DSS recommends strong encryption algorithms such as AES-256 and SSL/TLS for data in transit.

These methods can be used to minimize risk by replacing sensitive cardholder data with non-sensitive equivalents (tokens) or displaying only partial information (e.g., last four digits of a card number).

Smaller businesses or merchants can complete an SAQ to evaluate their PCI DSS compliance rather than undergo a full audit. This questionnaire helps determine the security measures they need to implement.

• Fines and Penalties: Non-compliance can result in fines from credit card brands ranging from $5,000 to $100,000 per month, depending on the severity and duration of the violation.
• Increased Liability: If a breach occurs and the business is found non-compliant, it may be held liable for the breach and associated costs, including card replacement, fraud damages, and legal fees.
• Reputational Damage: A data breach can cause significant harm to a business’s reputation, leading to loss of customers and trust in the brand.