If your software company develops solutions that handle payments and transactions, PCI compliance is absolutely crucial for keeping cardholders’ data safe. Failure to comply with the standards we’ll be discussing can result in significant financial penalties.. It can also do irreparable harm to your company’s reputation. Remember, it only takes one data breach or compliance slip-up to lose valuable credibility in the crowded and competitive software landscape. Using a hosted payment form can eliminate the ongoing headache of PCI compliance because it routes all cardholder data through a secure gateway rather than your software.
In this post, we explore the requirements of PCI compliance, its importance for software companies, penalties for breaking a contract that obligates you to remain compliant, and more.
What is PCI DSS?
PCI DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. It’s a series of practices and protocols to help companies who process credit or debit cards maintain the safety of customers’ card numbers, security codes, and other payment information. PCI DSS is meant to aid software companies in decreasing the risk of financial fraud, data breaches, and other data security issues.
Many software companies form business partnerships in which they’re contractually obligated to abide by these standards. This is hardly surprising — your business partners want to know that you handle payment data responsibly and have a secure digital environment for processing sensitive payment information. Otherwise, they’ll view your company as a business risk.
Key PCI DSS Requirements for Software Companies
PCI DSS was created by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC), which is made up of the five largest credit card companies: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Discover Financial Services, and American Express.
To achieve their aim of protecting valuable cardholder data, these companies laid out the following six protocols for PCI compliance:
- Ensure network and system security: This involves using firewalls to protect cardholders’ payment information, changing default network passwords and settings, and making sure that your company’s digital environment is secure against unauthorized access.
- Be vigilant about safeguarding data: In addition to securing the digital environment in which payments occur, you also need to keep cardholders’ data safe during each transaction. This involves encrypting customers’ financial data and only storing payment information when it’s absolutely necessary.
- Proactively monitor compliance risks: To remain PCI DSS compliant, software companies need to maintain an ongoing vulnerability management program. This entails using and regularly upgrading antivirus software, and making sure all of your payment systems and applications are free of vulnerabilities that could compromise cardholder data.
- Use reliable access control measures: Make sure that you maintain strong access controls to restrict the availability of payment information. No one at your company should have access to sensitive payment data unless it’s essential to their role.
- Engage in ongoing network monitoring: Frequently test your network for vulnerabilities that could result in a data breach. You should have antispyware and antivirus software running at all times to provide security scans of your data and applications.
- Record your information security policy: Software companies should have a formally written information security policy that includes measures to keep them accountable, such as penalties for failing to uphold the policy and periodic compliance audits.
Abiding by these protocols can help software providers safeguard their reputation, and avoid data breaches that compromise cardholders’ payment data.
A Quick and Simple PCI DSS Checklist for Software Companies
Maintaining strict PCI compliance can be challenging, costly, and time-consuming. That’s why many organizations work with a third party that specializes in PCI compliance management. However, if you’re doing it yourself, be sure to ask the following questions:
- Have you carefully limited access to your company’s systems?
- Does your software encrypt cardholders’ financial information?
- Are you patching and updating your software on a regular basis?
- Do you have a formal access control policy in place?
- Do you monitor and keep logs of every time your system is accessed?
- Do you have formal documentation that outlines your security policies?
Running through these questions on a monthly or quarterly basis can help companies maintain unbroken PCI compliance.
Penalties for PCI Non-Compliance
Failing to maintain PCI compliance can lead to serious consequences for software companies:
- Significant fines: A data breach could cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in fines, depending on the scope of the incident and the violations that led to it.
- Loss of credibility: PCI violations can make potential business partners hesitant to align themselves with your company, and cause customers to think twice before buying your products.
- Potential lawsuits: If a data breach occurs as a result of PCI non-compliance, your company could very well be sued by the affected parties.
Once you sign a contract that obligates your company to remain PCI compliant, you need to treat the PCI standards as seriously as you’d treat a federal regulation.
Let Us Handle Compliance So You Can Focus On Running Your Company
PCI compliance can be stressful for software companies, to say the least. It can also be a significant drain on your time and resources, slowing your product development lifecycle and dulling your competitive edge.
MSG has decades of experience helping companies navigate the challenges of PCI compliance so they can focus on building superior software products. We even offer revenue-sharing opportunities to our business partners. To learn how you can streamline PCI compliance and even make money in the process, contact the MSG Payment Systems team today.
