FEATURED ARTICLE

Why Should PCI Compliance
be Your Top Priority?

The most obvious benefit of PCI compliance is a simple matter of trust. What if your company was the one that recently suffered a security breach? What if you had to live with the stigma of the company that lost credit card numbers? Could your business ever live that down? Could your business survive the consequences? A large corporation may be able to endure (as has been seen in some recent cases), but most companies need to focus on building lasting trust. By limiting the possibilities of cardholder theft and identity theft, the problem of fraudulent sales resulting in chargebacks is greatly reduced.

One of the most valuable assets in this day and age is one's personal information. Creating an environment where customer information is entirely secure should be a top priority for merchants. However, as security breaches receive more media coverage and more public awareness, trust in the current security measures is faltering, and the need for stronger security, standardized tools and controls became crucial.

The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) was created by the five major credit card companies as a guideline to help merchants and other companies implement the necessary hardware, software, and other procedures to guard sensitive credit card and personal information.

In order to accept credit card payments merchants must have been PCI Compliant by Oct 1,2008. The encouragement to achieve PCI compliance comes in different forms: benefits and mandates. The mandates are the requirements of PCI compliance, and attached to them are very strict and specific penalties. If a non compliant merchant is breached they could incur fines as high as $500,000 per incident, and the loss of the ability to accept credit cards.

Merchants who are PCI compliant are offered protection from the fines if they should happen to be breached. If your business is compliant at the time it suffers an attack, you can have a safe harbor. Safe harbor status is the outcome of the PCI certification process and provides merchants protection from fines and compliance exposure in the event of a data compromise. To attain safe harbor status:

• Merchant must maintain full compliance at all times
• Merchant must demonstrate full compliance including the time of breach as demonstrated during a forensic investigation.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT

Increase Business &
Attract New Customers

Gift Cards are ideal for a variety of merchants such as restaurants, florists, landscaping, sporting goods, spas, salons, & auto repair shops. Gift cards can attract new business and boost sales all year long. On average most recipients spend 25% more than the amount of the gift card. Gift cards can be used as promotional marketing tools, corporate/charitable gifts, merchandise returns and customer appreciation. Business owners can check balances of all cards issued and receive daily reports of all cards processed.

Contact NTC Texas for more information at
877-877-6511.

TECH TIP

Is Your Computer Safe When You're Surfing the Web?

Maintain Privacy on the Web with these simple precautions:

• Pick Strong Passwords – use a mix of letters, numbers and symbols
• Use different passwords for Web services, never use your Web passwords for your PIN codes on your credit or debit cards
• Don't reveal sensitive information
• Keep Data secure – secure data on your hard drives & storage devices whose disclosure would create legal liability
• Apply latest security updates to all your software, operating systems, browsers and antivirus programs.