Launching your business is a challenging yet exhilarating venture. Picturing the payments and accounting processes, especially when profits begin to trickle in is pleasurable. Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget the compliance side of processing payments, especially when picking cards. What happens when a data breach occurs, and you expose personal client details? What are the legal and financial implications for your retail business? Fortunately, complying with PSS DSS helps you ensure safety in processing and storing private card data.
PCI DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a standard that ensures the information security of card data in businesses. As long as you accept credit and debit cards for payments in your retail business, the PCI DSS compliance is essential to your operations.
How did this standard come to be? Increasing cases of credit card fraud created the need for a standard that ensured the safety of cardholder information. Visa started by launching a program to protect card information, especially over the internet. Other card companies followed shortly afterward but eventually, they merged to form the PCI standards.
The current guidelines are a joint effort of Visa, Discover, Mastercard, American Express, and JCB. Since the launch, the PCI DSS has undergone several revisions to include any financial institutions, vendors, merchants, and data processing companies.
Processing Payments in Your Retail Business
To make your business appealing and efficient, you may include several payment options for your consumers. For example, cards, mobile payments, and bank payments happening both in the store and online. Since processing payment information takes place in multiple steps, criminals have several opportunities to access private information and use it for personal gain.
What’s more, criminals are intelligent and have no problem keeping up with the latest technologies and security standards. This means that they’re constantly aware of outdated processes and security standards, outdated technology, and new technology with new risks. You’ve probably seen high profile breaches on the news, but these breaches are equally devastating for small businesses.
Non-compliance has severe consequences. For instance, the penalty for not complying with PCI DSS can be as high as $500,000 for one breach. Large penalties can quickly render you bankrupt, while breaches can damage your reputation, causing loss of clients. The clients can also sue you and expect settlements for any breach that happens due to your negligence. You’ll drown in debt and financial losses trying to pay lawyers and pay all clients with exposed card information. You may also foot the cost of replacing exposed cards. What’s more, your acquiring bank can revoke your ability to accept and process credit cards, which immediately ruins your business.
Staying informed and complying with PCI DSS is essential for you as a retailer because it keeps you at par and helps you avoid the devastating consequences of data exposure.
What Are The Four Levels Of Compliance?
There different levels of compliance, depending on the transactions you process every year.
Level 1: Retailers that handle more than $6 million in e-commerce transactions per annum
Level 2: Retailers that handle $1 million to $6 million in e-commerce transactions annually.
Level 3: Retailers that handle $20,000 to $1 million in e-commerce transactions annually.
Level 4: Retailers that handle less than $20,000 in e-commerce transactions per year.
Your level of compliance determines the controls and processes you need to prove compliance. For example, if you’re a Level 1 merchant, an audit by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) is essential. The QSA then files a Report on Compliance (ROC) with your acquiring bank. For other levels, completing a Self Assessment Questionnaire is essential, followed by filing an Attestation of Compliance.
However, being compliant is a lifetime process. For as long as your business is operational, you need to update your compliance to bolster security against new risks.
What Are The Requirements of PCI DSS Compliance?
The PCI DSS establishes 12 requirements that help your business bolster security.
- Installing a firewall to protect cardholder information
- Changing all default passwords on devices and software
- Creating safe storage for cardholder information
- Encrypting cardholder data when transmitting it, especially over public networks
- Installing and ensuring that your antivirus software is updated
- Using and maintaining secure systems and apps
- Restricting and controlling access to cardholder information
- Creating IDs and authentification measures for every person with access to cardholder data
- Monitoring all people with access to cardholder information
- Restricting physical access to devices and areas with cardholder information
- Conducting regular tests on security systems
- Creating and maintaining a policy for protecting cardholder information
Each requirement has several directives that need to be fulfilled. As long as you process payments from any of the member card companies, i.e., JCB, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, you need to be compliant. The whole process can take around months, if not years, depending on the size of your retail business.
Bottom Line
Educating you and your workers is the first step in being PCI DSS compliant. Once you’re certain of the requirements, you can undertake the process alone or hire experts to guide you and ensure total compliance. At the end of the process, you’ll be grateful that cardholder information is safe.
