PCI Compliance Made Easy!
3 Simple Steps to be PCI Compliant
The reality is that to achieve PCI compliance, you have to educate yourself on a variety of security protocols and processes, along with various terminology and acronyms used by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC).
Fortunately, with a little help, you can successfully navigate these waters, achieve compliance, and get back to business.
The first thing you need to do is to understand why it’s important and what’s involved; then, all it really takes is 3 simple steps actually become PCI Compliant.
Why is PCI Compliance Important?
PCI Compliance - also known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard Compliance, was created by the 5 major credit card companies in order to establish a minimum level of data security for businesses that collect customer information.
This standard was put in place to help protect your business, your customer’s information, and the credit card companies from things like hackers, data theft, data loss, privacy issues, etc., because in today’s world, information is currency, and hackers and thieves will do almost anything to get access to your customer’s data - especially credit card information.
By implementing this Data Security Standard, you are putting proven processes and systems in place to help protect you and your customers from data loss or breaches that can happen to honest businesses, due to a variety of unfortunate situations that most people never even consider until it’s too late.
What happens if I ever get breached?
- Legal fees.
Not only do you open your business up to lawsuits, but breach lawyers are very expensive, and the fees can rack up quickly into the 10’s of thousands of dollars. - Bank fines.
If you’re not PCI Compliant and you suffer a security breach your merchant bank is going to come down on you for every customer who they had to reimburse after the theft or fraud. - Forensic Fees.
Before you can continue processing credit cards, your entire system has to be investigated by a forensics team to determine how the information was stolen, and then the breach has to be fixed and tested. - Remediation.
In addition to bank fines, you may be required to provide credit monitoring to your customers for a certain period of time. This can cost upwards of $20-$30 per customer. - Federal audits and fines.
The FTC might get involved if your company was negligent. This could mean investigations into your business and processes, along with fines and regulations that can cripple your business moving forward. - Loss of revenue.
Not only will you be unable to temporarily conduct business after your breach, but the after-effects can cause your revenue to drop. For example, when Target was breached, their profits fell $440 million the following fiscal quarter. - Difficulty processing credit cards.
Once you’re breached, merchant banks are much more hesitant to process transactions on your behalf, and may deny you or charge much higher fees. - Damage to your reputation.
Even if you get through all of the issues above, you still have to deal with the long-term effects that a breach has on your company’s reputation. There are often news articles and social media posts that linger for months or even years following a breach.
With all of these issues to deal with, it’s no wonder that 60% of businesses that get breached go out of business within 6 months!
What can PCI Compliance do to protect my business from getting hacked?
PCI Compliance doesn't necessarily guarantee that you will never be breached, but what it does is help you to put safety procedures in place that significantly reduce the risk of a breach. This is accomplished in two parts; PCI Scanning and a Self-Assessment Questionnaire.
PCI SCANNING
The PCI Scan is a special external scan approved by the PCI Security Standards Council that utilizes known vulnerabilities and ethically tries to gain access to your site. A report is then generated that shows you where the vulnerabilities are and how to fix them.
Self Assessment Questionnaire
The Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) is a series of questions that discuss security policies and procedures that you need to have in place in order to protect your business from the 12 main types of threats that can impact your business.
DID YOU KNOW
75,613 vulnerabilities!
WHO'S AT RISK
In simplified terms, the 12 PCI Compliance Requirements in the SAQ are:
- Install and maintain a firewall to protect your network.
- Change any default passwords on any computers or software.
- Protect any cardholder data that your store on your servers.
- Securely encrypt the transmission of cardholder data and sensitive information (SSL).
- Develop and maintain secure systems and applications.
- Restrict customer data only to people that need access.
- Assign a unique username and password to each person with computer access.
- Restrict physical access to your servers only to people that need access.
- Track and monitor the people that have access to your servers and network.
- Regularly test security your systems and processes.
- Maintain a security policy for your business.
Depending on what type of business you operate, the number of questions within each of these 12 sections of the SAQ can vary.
What are the 3 Steps I need to take
to become PCI Compliant?
PCI Compliance doesn’t have to be difficult once you know the steps and have access to the right tools! All it takes is the following 3 steps:
1. Trust Guard scans your website
for over 75,000 known vulnerabilities.
Once you pass your scan you’ll receive
a PCI Scan Report
2. Fill out a Self-Assessment
Questionnaire (SAQ) in your
Trust Guard Control Panel
using our online wizard.
3. Simply forward your PCI Scan
Report and your SAQ form to your
merchant bank, and your site
is PCI Compliant!
How Trust Guard® Compares To The Competition
While there are other companies who are authorized to do PCI Scanning, Trust Guard Total Website Protection is unique, because it's the only security solution that fully protects both your website and your business using 4 Layers of Protection:
Protection #1: Advanced PCI Scanning
We scan for over 75,613 known vulnerabilities to establish a perimeter defense around your website; helping to close and block any open doorways.
Protection #2: Internal Malware Scanning
We use Artificial Intelligence and millions of data points to scan your files for any suspicious or hidden file changes you don't know about.
Protection #3: 'Auto-Renewing SSL Certificates
When your current SSL is close to expiring, we help you install the latest auto-renewing SSL, so you never have to worry about your SSL expiring ever again.
Protection #4: $200,000 in Total Cyber Protection
This is a BIG deal. If your website is ever hacked, you are fully protected with $100,000 in Cyber Insurance and $100,000 in Breach Response Insurance.
You win with Trust Guard® Total Website Protection
When you choose Trust Guard, not only do you get PCI, Malware, SSL, and your own Cyber Insurance Policy, you can also add the Trust Guard 'SECURED' Seal to your website, which gives your customers peace of mind and to helps to increase your sales.
Enjoy Multiple Layers of Protection with PCI, Malware and SSL.
Protect your website and your business with $100,000 in Cyber Insurance and $100,000 in Breach Response Insurance.
Place the Trust Guard 'SECURED' seal on your website and Shopping Cart for additional sales!
