Why PCI Compliance Is Important

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As a merchant, you've probably heard much about the importance of maintaining PCI Compliance. However, besides avoiding penalties, you may be wondering why it's truly essential and why it matters so much. The truth is, any breach of cardholder databases and theft of personal information can have a detrimental impact on the trust of the entire online buying community, ultimately hurting sales for all merchants involved.

The importance of PCI compliance cannot be overstated when it comes to the security benefits it provides to merchants who rely on credit card payments. Let's dive deeper into why PCI compliance is so crucial, gaining a better understanding of its significance.

What do thieves want anyway?

In simple terms, data thieves have a strong desire to obtain cardholder data, as as they can possibly get. This stolen information opens up opportunities for them to engage in fraudulent purchases or even sell the data for monetary gain. If a thief can access the Primary Account Number (PAN) and the necessary authentication details, they can unlawfully acquire the cardholder's identity and then pretend to be the cardholder, using their card information.

These are among the main types of data on credit card thieves are seeking:

• PAN
• Cardholder First and Last Names
• Expiration Date
• CID (which should NEVER be stored)
• Magnetic stripe data

Where does it get stolen from?

As expected, the places a data thief can find cardholder data are growing, but some may surprise you. Other than the obvious places like a card reader that's been compromised, thieves have also successfully stolen sensitive data from:

• Paper stored in a filing cabinet
• Data in a payment system database
• Hidden camera recording entry of authentication data
• Secret tap into your store’s wireless or wired network
• Eavesdropping on a phone order taker in a restaurant or store

What are you required to secure?

It should be stated that the safest option is to avoid storing any credit card information at all and work with a secured integrated payments provider like Paya. If you do store data, you’ll need to secure some surprising and largely overlooked places, such as:

• Networks and wireless access routers
• Payment card data is stored in paper-based records (companies that take phone orders are particularly susceptible in this category)
• E-commerce shopping cart software
• Level 3 payments

Start Saving with Help from Paya's Integrated Payment Experts

Paya is the leader in delivering simpler, more efficient, and deeply integrated payment solutions with more than 25 years of industry experience and 2,000+ industry customers and partners. Paya is committed to delivering best-in-class integrated payment solutions across the full suite of Sage ERP products. We are proud to be Sage’s preferred partner for Integrated Payments in the US.   

At Paya we are unique from our competitors because we emphasize solutions engineering, engaging our domain experts as part of the early sales process. Through a collaborative but simple hands-on process, we develop a deep understanding of our partners’ current processes and pain points and requirements to ensure you get a platform and system with the capabilities you need. Paya has enabled businesses to optimize billing and invoice processes, deliver more payment options and greater flexibility to their customers, and improve back-office efficiencies.

Contact Paya's Acumatica Integrated Payments team to schedule a free consultation today! 

Learn more about how our credit card processing experts, solutions, and processes can benefit your organization and save you money!! 

See Paya's Acumatica Integrated Payments solution on ERPVAR's site.