For businesses and entrepreneurs that accept credit card payments online, via mobile, or in a traditional physical retail setting, the security of payment transactions has never been more important or more on the minds of consumers.
When you consider that more than eight out of every ten credit card-related security breaches occur at smaller companies, small businesses have tremendous incentive to do their utmost to protect customer privacy and financial data.
In particular, says the team at North American Bancard, this means going the extra mile to ensure that their merchant account details and equipment are PCI compliant.
The venerable provider of merchant services to more than 180,000 businesses in North America says there are 12 commandments of PCI compliance that merchants must consider.
- Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect cardholder data via a secure network.
- Change vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.
- Protect stored cardholder data.
- Encrypt transmission of cardholder data across open, public networks.
- Maintain a vulnerability management program by using and regularly updating anti-virus software.
- Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
- Restrict access to cardholder data by business need-to-know.
- Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access.
- Restrict physical access to cardholder data.
- Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data.
- Regularly test security systems and processes.
- Maintain a policy that addresses information security.
To read the full post from NAB, check out their official blog here.
