PCI: DSS Certification
Ensure payment card information is stored, processed & transmitted securely
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI: DSS) is a set of security standards which are endorsed by the five most globally influential payment brands: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Discovery and American Express. The standard was created to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce cardholder fraud and describes a series of security requirements in 12 different categories.
Compliance with PCI: DSS is a mandatory requirement for any business which stores, processes or transmits card data to demonstrate their compliance with the standard.
All merchants will fall into one of the four merchant levels, based on the volume of card payment transactions over a 12 month period and these levels determine the assessment type and reporting requirements
Report On Compliance (ROC)
ROCs are reserved for level 1 merchants (6 million or more annual transactions) and level 1 service providers (300,000 transactions per year).
It is compulsory that the report is completed by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) and provides independent confirmation of your compliance status. ROCs must also be accompanied by a complete Attestation Of Compliance (AOC) report.
Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ)
Merchants who fall into level 4 (20,0000 or less annual transactions), level 3 (20,000 to 1 million annual transactions) and level 2 (1 million to 6 million annual transactions). Will be required to fill in a Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). Level 2 service providers (less than 300,000 transactions per year) will also be required to fill in SAQ’s
SES will assist in clarifying which SAQ you are required to fill in, significantly reducing your organisation's administration.
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Our expertise. Your questions answered
What’s the easiest thing to implement in my office?
There are many controls every organisation should put in place to ensure good defence against cyber threats - from the basics like using anti-virus, email filters and firewalls, to more in-depth activities, like Penetration Testing and Phishing Assessments. One of the basic controls you can implement easily in both your professional and personal lives is good password hygiene. In some cases, your password is often the only thing keeping cyber criminals away from your sensitive information; length is the primary factor when creating a strong password—the longer it is, the more guesses will be needed by hackers to get it right.
Am I investing my Cyber Security budget correctly?
You could take a blanket approach and cover every possibility, but that’s an expensive strategy and your Finance Manager or CFO probably wouldn’t be happy to spend money unnecessarily. Every business faces different threats, so what the organisation in the next office needs to defend against isn’t necessarily what you need to invest in. It’s important to get an understanding of your threat profile and align that with the risks you’re willing to take (or not take). From there, you can decide what you should be investing in.
How do I educate my team to handle cyber threats?
The cyber threat is ever-changing and even with the best technical defences in place, the end-users (i.e. humans) are usually the weakest link. That is not to say that cyber security should only be non-technical, but it is important to have the right balance. Knowing where to start for cyber security generally can be difficult and working out what your team needs to know is a bit overwhelming. Like knowing where to invest your budget, how you train your team also starts with understanding your specific threats.
What do I do when something goes wrong?
Frustratingly, you’ve put in place all these useful security controls, but with the threats changing so often, keeping up can be hard. Therefore, it’s important to have the mindset that, it’s not about if you get breached, it’s about when you get breached and then how you handle it. Having a plan in place will ensure the consequences of a breach don’t undo of all your hard work in developing your organisation and building your reputation.