to help enterprise security across Europe
The resource centre for busy senior executives seeking the latest insights into IT Compliance & Privacy issues for major organizations
 
sarbaines oxley ofcom communications regulator
Latest Resources      data protection register
compliance resources privacy resource center

Breaking Global News
Global Compliance and Privacy News
- Breaking News, updated every 30 minutes
•   Compliance, Privacy and Security
•  Money Laundering
•  Phishing
•  Regulatory Issues
•  SOX, Basel 2, MiFID


You Tell Us:
S
S
L

T
E
C
H
N
O
L
O
G
Y
We use SSL Technology for web data entry points:

Always
Sometimes
Never
What is SSL?

News
Are Smartphones Endangering Security? - Wick Hill
Dealing with Internet Security Threats - Ian Kilpatrick
How the New EU Rules on Data Export Affect Companies in and Outside the EU - Thomas Helbing
Farmers' Data Leak Highlights Old Technology Use - Wick Hill
Saving Money with SFTP - Wick Hill
UK Information Commissioner targets firm selling vetting data - Eversheds e80
12 Key Steps to Internet Security - Wick Hill
Telephone Monitoring Legality in the UK - Dechert
Firewall or UTM - Wick Hill
UK Information Commissioner demands mobile device encryption - Eversheds e80
Data loss - liability, reputation and mitigation of risk - Eversheds e80
Phorm, Webwise and OIX - BCS Security Forum
The challenges of PCI DSS compliance - Thales, Russell Fewing
"Quality" Data Vendor Spams us! Editor astounded!
National Gateway Security Survey 2008 - Wick Hill
Unified Threat Management - Watchguard Technologies

news archives
:
0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
12 | 13
[What is this?]

Industry Blogs
Tim Berners Lee's Blog
Tim Callan's SSL Blog
Davis Wright Tremaine's Privacy & Security Law Blog
Emergent Chaos Blog
Michael Farnum's Blog
Phillip Hallam-Baker's Blog - The dotFuture Manifesto: Internet Crime, Web Services, Philosophy
Stuart King's Security and Risk Management Blog
David Lacey's IT Security Blog
Metasploit Official Blog
Jeff Pettorino's Security Convergence Blog
Jeff Richards's Demand Insights Blog
David Rowe's Risk ManagementBlog
Bruce Schneier's Security Blog
Larry Seltzer's Security Weblog
Mike Spinney's Private Communications Blog
Richard Steinnon's Threat Chaos Blog
The TechWeb Blog
Tim Trent's Marketing by Permission Blog
Rebecca Wong 's DP Thinker Blog

Newsletters
23 February Newsletter
Newsletter Archives are located in "News"

Industry Update
Internet Security Intelligence Briefing - November 2005
Find out the latest trends in e-commerce, web usage & the latest threats from adware/Spyware

Reports
Phorm, Webwise and OIX
- BCS Security Forum

'The Any Era has Arrived, and Everyione has Noticed' - Stratton Sclavos - VeriSign
Identity Security - Time to Share
Malicious code threats - iDefense
Public Alerts - updated as they happen from Stopbadware.org
Public Alerts - updated as they happen from Websense
Public Advisories - updated as they happen, from iDefense
Phoraging - Privacy invasion through the Semantic web: a special report by Mike Davies of VeriSign

Legislation
Privacy Laws & Business International E-news, Issue 57
Privacy Laws & Business UNited Kingdom E-news, Issue 60

Security Reviews
February 2007 - VeriSign Security Review
The security review archive is here

Case Studies
Finance Industry
Case Study Example

A case study on a Finance industry company.

White Papers
VeriSign® Intelligent Infrastructure for Security
VeriSign® Intelligent Infrastructure: An Overview
Identity Protection Fraud Detection Service - description of the service
Life of a Threat - Video on Threat Management Lifecycle
Optimizing Enterprise Information Security Compliance - Dealing with all the audits
For a full list of all whitepapers, visit our Whitepaper library

Legal Notices
Privacy Policy
Terms of use

basel 2 sarbanes oxley
    legislation
data controller notification binding corporate rules BCR data transfer third countries third part data transfer basel 2 regualtor regulation regulate FSA banking network security RSA encryptin algorithm Bits sacked bank staff
Blogs compliance Reports compliancy Legislation Data Protection Case Studies data privacy White Papers data protection act News information commissioner Events security standards Links information security iDefense
Retail Solutions

Are you storing customer data properly? The challenges of PCI DSS compliance

compliance and privacy

Current News Updates

Are you storing customer data properly? The challenges of PCI DSS compliance

Russell Fewing of Thalesby Russell Fewing , Services Marketing Manager at the Information Systems Security activities of Thales

Data security breaches are hitting the headlines with alarming frequency. While the most recent breaches have involved the public sector and financial services industries, retailers are not immune from the rise of data losses. Cotton Traders, the UK leisurewear and casual clothes brand, for example, recently conceded that thousands of customer details had been stolen from the company's website. Last year saw perhaps one of the most publicised cases involving retail giant, TJ Maxx, which found that hackers had accessed internal systems used to process and store customer transaction data, including credit card, debit card, cheque and return transactions. The incident cost TJ Maxx $256 million1 and the company is now offering to pay Visa card issuers a further $40.9 million2 to compensate for costs connected to the data breach. With data security cases rising in number and severity, the various industries affected are pulling together in an attempt to reduce the risk of fraud. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS ) is one such example which aims to crack down on fraud associated with credit and debit cards. However, the implementation of PCI DSS is not without its challenges and these must be overcome if the standard is to be used as an effective weapon in the fight against card fraud.

PCI DSS aims to prevent any information that could be used to make a counterfeit card or a fraudulent online transaction from falling into the wrong hands. The standard applies to every acquiring bank, merchant and third party that accepts or processes payment cards. It is now mandatory for businesses with over 100,000 transactions a year to either be PCI DSS compliant or be able to demonstrate plans to become so. However, there is one element of the standard which is proving to be a particular stumbling block – requirement 3: protecting the stored cardholder data. In fact, 79 per cent of PCI DSS audit failures are due to companies not implementing requirement 3 properly.

Retailers have to store customer data, for example in order to be able to refund payments. PCI DSS compliance implies that protecting cardholder data involves storing only the minimum information needed to make the stored data valueless to anyone who does manage to steal it. While there are various PCI DSS approved techniques for achieving this, strong cryptography is the most sophisticated and most successful approach for protecting stored cardholder data, ensuring that the information remains safe even if the other layers are breached. Encryption also allows data to be stored for as long as necessary and as flexibly as possible.

With strong cryptography a secret ‘key' value is used in an encryption algorithm to protect the cardholder data. As long as this ‘key' value remains secret, the encrypted data is safe. Consequently, the best way to store the secret ‘key' is to use a cryptographic Hardware Security Module (HSM) that performs all of the encryption and decryption of data and never allows users or applications to see the key. The improved security resulting from this approach is a considerable benefit not only in demonstrating compliance with the PCI DSS but also in mitigating risk for an organisation, and avoiding fines and penalties associated with non-compliance.

Compliance with PCI DSS may be perceived by the industry as another regulatory burden that they could do without, particularly when it comes to implementing the more challenging requirements such as protecting stored cardholder data. However, as fraudsters become increasingly sophisticated and data breaches among retailers continue to regularly make the headlines, PCI DSS compliance should be viewed as an opportunity to review security processes and ensure that it's not your company name hitting the headlines in tomorrow's newspapers.

Sources

1 Search Security, ‘ TJX profit takes hit over data breach', 15 th August 2007
2 Search Security, ‘ TJX offers $40.9 million breach settlement', 3 rd December 2007

 


This site is independent of all its sources
The contents of the site are sourced from across the industry. All copyrights are acknowledged.