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05/02/2010 -
Payment processing security - and the requisite PCI-DSS compliance - can be daunting to businesses of any size, but especially for smaller merchants that do not have an IT department to help them make sense of the requirements.To help address some commonly asked questions about PCI-DSS compliance, security solutions provider Trustwave and the Electronic Transactions Association hosted a webinar in late January, the highlights of which were presented by payment processing magazine the Green Sheet.
The number one take-away point of the webinar, the magazine reported, was that PCI compliance is not optional.
"Failure to achieve and maintain PCI standards can result in noncompliance fees from the acquiring bank that are assessed on a regular basis, usually monthly," Kevin Mott, enterprise sales engineer for Trustwave, said in the webinar, the magazine reported.
Mott also added that the costs of reversing damages incurred by a breach are "significant," and that a breach brings "regulatory fines and penalties, higher costs to process card transactions or even losing the ability to do so completely, and stricter compliance requirements for the merchant."
The breach of Heartland Payment Systems is a good example - the company told SearchFinancialSecurity.com in May 2009 that the breach cost the firm $12.6 million, and this was before its recent multi-million dollar settlements to American Express and Visa.
