Blog Article

What is security compliance?

All compliances are important in different ways for different businesses. Of these, globally relevant and critical one is SECURITY COMPLIANCE in the digital world. The core objective of SECURITY COMPLIANCE is to ensure security of INFORMATION in a given business context.

Payment Card Industry - Data Security Standard PCI-DSS

The payment industry has been proactive to ensure security and privacy of PAYMENT data with the adoption technological advances. Further, there have been institutional efforts to ensure best practices to be applied by the merchants, service providers and any third party participating in the process. One of such global set of best practices has been instituted by PCI Security Standards Council.

The PCI Security Standards Council is a global institution developing and driving the adoption of unified data security standards for safe payments. PCI council has been actively guiding the concerned institutions engaged or related to the payments industry worldwide.

The data security guidelines covered in a set of standards, is called “Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard", commonly known as PCI DSS. PCI DSS was developed to ensure best and consistent / unified practices for payment data security worldwide. PCI DSS provides guidelines on technical and operational requirements to protect payment related data including adopting the measures to secure the payment ecosystem.

Some of the key highlights of PCI DSS guidelines are:

Physical security measures, Logging and monitoring, Information Security Policy, Continuous alignment and awareness, Implementing Strong Access Control mechanisms, Vulnerability Management, Protection from malwares, Securing Network and Systems including Secure Configurations and Protecting payment Data in transit and at rest with Strong Cryptography

Different versions of the standard (PCI DSS)

PCI version 3.2.1 was effective till March 31, 2024. Now, PCI DSS version 4.0 is applicable for organizations. Organizations are required to follow the new standards PCI DSS version 4.0 after March 31, 2024. A few specific requirements can be followed a year later up to March 31st 2025. Some of the new requirements are in the areas of multi-factor authentication, password, e-commerce and phishing, Roles and responsibilities and targeted risk analysis etc.

The new version 4.0 brings many changes to meet the security needs of the payments industry. This has been done to align with the latest technology advancements and respond to increasing threat landscape. After March 31st 2025, all the future dated requirements are mandatory and must be considered for assessment.

The clock is ticking for adherence. Organizations must align and comply with the latest standard PCI DSS v4.0. In a business scenario, when it comes to compliance, we often focus on getting a certification. However, certification is just one of the early milestones to achieve. It is important. Great! "Well begun!" The real journey begins hereafter and the journey is continuous. Now, is the right time to set the scope and get started on a new compliance journey by adopting PCI DSS version 4.0 to begin a new journey of continuous compliance. Sooner the better! All the best!