PCI - Credit Card issues

Credit cards are in need of more protection. Hackers and Crackers are making millions from stealing personal and corporate credit cards. Many companies have spent millions of dollars trying to protect credit cards necessary to conduct business. But for medium size businesses, this is proving to become very costly.

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) has put forth some of the best practices to ensure companies are protecting credit cards. However, the standards and practices are very difficult to implement and enforce. Please be encouraged, there are tactics to help reduce the affect and exposure to PCI standards.

Here are three tactics to help reduce the PCI scope in your environment and to reduce unnecessary duplication:

Tactic #1
For audit and management purposed, reduce the network and processes that touch payment cards to a separate network. Basically, you need two networks. Firewalls, segregation of duties and other divisive tactics will help keep the effect of the PCI requirements focused to only it's scope. PCI should only be restricted to PCI systems and processes.

Tactic #2
This may sound like a contradiction to the first tactic, but it helps your management of resources and talent. Align as many of your overall standards and practices with the PCI standards. Simply, developing and managing your standards and practices with consistency will save money, reduce errors and eliminate many redundancies within your organization.

Tactic #3
Do not wait to audit at the end of the year. Conduct small, random audits, every month throughout your organization. This will help ensure that standards, practices and processes are compliant. This tactic will help your employees know that they must continuous comply--which keeps the errors low and compliance high.

PCI is difficult, but very necessary. Do not take this standard lightly, but find efficiencies to help make this requirement helpful for all.