PCI DSS Compliance Requirements – You Need to Know

Summary: In this fast growing world, where online threats are becoming a serious concern for the organization who deals with the credit card information. During the process of transactions, companies need to comply with PCI DSS compliance requirements to prevent data breaches and malicious activities. PCI DSS is termed as >>> Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard<<<. It ensures that companies who deal with regular credit card information maintain a safe and secure environment.

What Do You Mean By PCI DSS Compliance?

It is required mostly by the credit card companies in order to secure their payment transactions. To protect the credit card data provided by cardholders, you need to refer to technical and operational aspects. PCI DSS standards are created and are managed by the PCI security standards council.

So, in this guide we will explore 12 PCI DSS compliance requirements & benefits and also help businesses by taking preventive measures to protect cardholder data and secure payment transactions.

Benefits of Being PCI DSS Compliant

There are various benefits of following PCI DSS compliance requirements which should be taken care of are given below:

1. Constant maintenance of security gaps are very important to protect the credit card information by avoiding cyber threats and other online scams.
2.  It gains the customer trust and builds their confidence towards the company that their data is secure during the payment transaction.
3. By following these rules, you can avoid heavy fines and penalties.
4. Being PCI DSS Compliant can boost up your business reputation and provides a global recognition for securing cardholder data.

PCI DSS Compliance Requirements

Here are 12 requirements of PCI DSS and all these have the same goal that is to protect cardholder data. So, let’s dive into this for better understanding:

1. Install and Maintain a Secure Network to Protect Cardholder Data: You need to implement firewall rules to protect cardholder information from security threats. It acts as the first line of protection for your networks and organizations should establish these networks through proper configuration to protect data.

2. Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords: As most of the operating systems come with factory default settings like usernames, and passwords which are easy to guess and can be found online. To counter this, ensure that all your default passwords and security parameters are being changed properly.

3. Protect Stored Cardholder Data: This is one of the most important PCI standards, as you need to know that the data which you are going to store with its location and retention period must be encrypted using industry algorithms or hashed. So, use strong encryption methods to secure the data.

4. Encrypt Transmission of Card Holder Data Across Open, Public Networks: You must secure card data when transmitting over open or public networks like internet, GPRS etc. You must know where you are going to send/receive the card data to/from. So, ensure using strong security protocols during your data transmission.

5. Protect All Systems Using Anti-Virus Software: By following this PCI DSS compliance requirements, you can be safeguarded against various types of malware keeping your system unaffected. As a result, the employees need to install the antivirus package on their respective laptops, workstations, and mobile devices. It will detect malware to protect the system. It will detect malware to protect the system.

6. Develop and Maintain Secure Systems and Applications: It is important to define and implement a process that allows to identify and classify the risk in the PCI DSS environment using reliable external sources. Organizations must deploy critical patches promptly to minimize the risk of exploits. Patch all systems in the card data environment, including operating systems, firewalls, routers, databases etc.

7. Restrict Access to Card Holder Data By Business Need to Know: To implement strong access control measures, service providers and merchants must manage access to cardholder data systems. To grant access to card data and systems on a need-to-know basis, you need to follow this requirement which is all about role-based access control (RBAC).

There is a key concept in PCI DSS which is “Need to Know“. In order to prevent sensitive data from unauthorized access, access control systems like (LDAP, active directory) must evaluate each access request. So, limit the access of sensitive data to those who need it.

8. Assign a Unique ID to Each Person With Computer Access: Do not use shared or group user accounts and passwords. Every authorized user must have a unique identifier and passwords must be adequately complex. This ensures accountability by tracing all cardholder data access to a specific user. Require two-factor authorization for administrative access.

9. Restrict Physical Access to Card Holder Data: This PCI DSS compliance requirements focuses on the protection of physical access to systems with cardholder data. Without controls, unauthorized people could steal, disable, interrupt, or destroy critical systems and data. Also, use video cameras or electronic access controls to monitor entry and exit doors at physical locations, like data centers. Retain recordings or access logs of personnel movement for a minimum of 90 days. Implement an access process to differentiate between authorized visitors and employees. It is necessary to destroy all media when the business no longer needs

10. Track and Monitor All Access to Network Resources and Card Holder Data: The vulnerabilities in physical and wireless networks make it easier for cybercriminals to steal card data. This requirement requires that all the systems must have the correct audit policy set and send the logs to a centralized syslog server. Review these logs daily for anomalies and suspicious activities. PCI DSS compliance requirements also requires that audit trail records must meet a certain standard in terms of the information contained. You must synchronize time, Secure audit data, Retain audit data for at least one year.

11. Regularly Test Security Systems and Processes:  Conduct regular vulnerability scans and penetration tests. The following activities:

•  Firstly, use a wireless analyzer to detect and identify all authorized and unauthorized wireless access points.
• A PCI Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) must scan all external IPs and domains exposed in the CDE at least quarterly.
• Then, conduct internal vulnerability scans at least every quarter.
• Lastly, perform thorough application and network penetration tests on all external IPs and domains at least once a year or after any significant change.

12.  Maintain a Policy that Addresses Information Security For All Personnel: The final PCI compliance requirement focuses on having an information security policy for all employees and relevant parties. The information security policy must be at least a yearly review and disseminated to all the employees, vendors/contractors. Users must read the policy and acknowledge it.

This Requirements requires you to perform:

• User awareness Training
• Management of Incidents happenings
• Background checks for Employees
• An annual formal Risk Management

Best Software Complying With PCI DSS Compliance Requirements    

To ensure that your company rightly complies with PCI DSS rules, you can opt for SysTools Data Erasure Software which protects sensitive cardholder data to gain customer trust. Also, it includes multiple overwrites and advanced algorithms to ensure that the data is securely erased. It is used to wipe data from multiple storage devices like HDD, SSD, NVMe etc. It also follows more than 20 + global standards including NIST 800-88, DoD 5220.22-M, ISO 27001 etc.

Conclusion

It is an important aspect for the company or organization to achieve PCI DSS compliance requirements, who handles credit card transactions. Therefore, it ensures the protection of sensitive cardholder data, enhances customer trust, and helps avoid legal and financial penalties. By adhering to PCI DSS requirements, businesses can secure their operations, improve their reputation, and achieve operational efficiencies.