When clients come to us for help with their PCI compliance project, they’re normally at a loss. And no wonder, when you consider these five hurdles:
- All the requirements are mandatory
All 300 PCI DSS controls and all the requirements within the Standard are mandatory. You must comply with all of them, all of the time, to become and stay compliant.
- The PCI DSS is very technical
The PCI DSS is significantly more technical than other information security standards, such as ISO 27001, and organisations will often need to outsource their PCI project to experts.
- There’s a lot of pressure involved
Most organisations that seek PCI compliance are asked or forced to do so by their acquiring bank, or need to because of a contractual requirement. There is a lot of pressure from stakeholders to become compliant as quickly as possible, which often means controls or requirements are skipped, not implemented properly or not fully understood.
If you suffer a data breach affecting cardholder data and you are found to be non-compliant with the PCI DSS, you can also face huge fines from your acquiring bank and the ICO, and loss of reputation and customer trust.
- Lack of competence
Because most organisations need to become PCI-compliant because of a third party and not because it is right for their business or fits in with their business model, a lot of organisations lack the in-house expertise or the staff commitment to make complying with the Standard a straightforward process.
- Defining the scope
The biggest part of the PCI DSS is defining the scope. Defining a scope too narrowly can leave cardholder data vulnerable, whereas a broad scope can add immense and unnecessary cost and effort to your project. Defining an accurate scope for your business is tricky to say the least; most organisations need to hire Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) to help them.
Solving your PCI compliance problems
While most organisations will need to outsource their projects, there are some efforts that you will need to maintain in-house to ensure compliance.
As well as staff awareness training, you will need to create and maintain PCI-compliant documentation. This isn’t just a requirement of the PCI DSS: the documentation (processes, logs, etc.) will ensure you have evidence to support your claims should the acquiring bank or ICO have any cause to investigate.
Designed by a leading PCI QSA, the PCI DSS Documentation Toolkit contains all the expert guidance, advice and fully customisable documentation templates you will need to accelerate your PCI DSS project.
With this toolkit, you can easily keep track of all your documents and present it to auditors as part of your proof of compliance. It provides crucial guidance and gap analysis project tools to aid your project.
Compliance with the PCI DSS can be bewildering, but this toolkit can give you the direction and tools to streamline your project.