10 Ways To Be More PCI Compliant

Firstly, lets discuss what exactly is PCI compliance and what it entails.

PCI or a payment card industry is a defined set of standards as well as rules that help to protect data related to your credit cards and are administrated by a council called the PCI Security Standards Council.

PCI Security Standards are actually six different security standard procedures that help safeguard your financial information in terms of your credit cards etc. There are six different PCI security standards

1. Building and maintenance of a secure network
2. Protecting client data
3. Maintain a program related to management of vulnerability
4. Access control measures need to be strongly in place
5. Monitor and test networks regularly

Ten ways to implement it in your particular place in a good fashion is

1. Use a configured firewall. Since firewalls will keep unauthorized users from gaining access to your system it is best to use a firewall system which is actually not even very hard to install since many pcs come with firewalls prebuilt.

2. Continually update your anti-virus and use a good anti-virus for your system. Anti-viruses actually help to prevent malware and viruses from gaining access to your systems. However, the system must be regularly updated to make sure that it is able to contest the newer viruses.

3. Change passwords from the default or similar passwords to any passwords you use on external systems. When installing any new software or hardware make sure that the system passwords are changed from the one provided initially since most hackers know what they are.

4. Make sure only staff members are the individuals who have access to the information of your cardholders

5. Sensitive data relating to your cardholders should never be located on any normal hardware or software

6. Make sure your router is secure, encrypted and protected by a password

7. The passwords of each of your systems POS or otherwise should always be strong and updated regularly preferably every 90 days

8. The devices you use to make transactions should be approved. Since they have to be verified and known that the information they gather will not be misused in anyway at all

9. Process credit card payments via a payment application that is totally validated and upto PCI council standards

10. POS software you use should be updated and always upto PCI council code. This is to make sure that it is upto the standard of customer security.