PCI Compliance: Protecting Card Holder Data

As a business owner and credit card merchant, protecting customers’ sensitive credit card data is critical to keeping your business safe. That is why, starting in July, all merchants now must be sure their payment processing equipment and technology is PCI compliant. While some merchants may be concerned over the immediate costs associated with certain PCI compliant security features, it is important to realize that if credit card information is compromised, merchants are held responsible. PCI compliance becomes well worth the cost when considering the hefty fines and devastating loss associated with security breaches and credit card fraud.

Below, learn how to attain PCI compliance and improve security by protecting card holder data with tokenization and end-to-end encryption.

Tokenization: Merchants who store credit card information for billing purposes must take the proper precautions in keeping stored data safe. Tokenization is an effective security measure that replaces stored credit card numbers with a token. If thieves are able to hack into your systems, in place of the credit card numbers they will only find tokens, which are useless to them.

End-to-End Encryption: While tokenization keeps stored data safe, end-to-end encryption (E2EE) protects credit card data while it is in transit. That means that from the time the card is swiped through the processing terminal to the moment it is verified and authorized – and every moment in between – credit card information is encrypted for protection. If a security breach occurs, thieves cannot gain access to actual credit card numbers.

BluePay is committed to helping merchants achieve or increase PCI compliance. Learn more about PCI Compliance.