The legalization of recreational and medical marijuana in many states and countries around the world has made the global marijuana market one of the fastest-growing industries. According to a recent report by the Grand View Research, Inc., the global legal marijuana market will grow to $66.3 billion by 2025.

Cannabis is being widely used as a pharmaceutical product. It is said to be effective in treating severe medical conditions like arthritis, cancer, and Parkinson’s disease. This has contributed to the increased demand for medicinal marijuana.

Moreover, recreational marijuana or the use of cannabis without medical justification is being legalized in many states and countries. In the United States, 11 states and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of cannabis among adults. Countries like Canada, Belize, Jamaica, Argentina, and the Netherlands have also decriminalized the use of marijuana.

All these developments point to the expansion of the cannabis industry in the years to come. Marijuana dispensaries can maximize their growth potential by complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), an information security standard for payment processing. Cashless ATM or point of sale (POS) banking is considered a viable and important platform for marijuana dispensaries to grow their sales. With POS banking, online cannabis dispensaries can accept purchases from customers who use their credit and debit cards.

(more…)

Need for Payment Cardholder Data Protection

There have been 2,216 confirmed data breaches in 2018. 76% of breaches were financially motivated. Cybercriminals are increasingly becoming more sophisticated. Data breach preparedness among the companies are at an alltime high. 324 data breaches involved stealing credit card data at the Point of Sale (POS) where card-present retail transactions are conducted. 414 credit card data breaches involved targeting payment web applications.

There’s one common security vulnerability leading to these payment cardholder data breaches at the POS and within web applications: Lack of payment cardholder data encryption.

PCI Point to Point Data Encryption (P2PE) to the rescue!

(more…)

When it comes to ensuring that only authorized personnel are allowed into systems remotely, one of the best ways is to use a token. When it comes to keeping Credit Card Holder Data protected, one of the best solutions is tokenization. Many options exist for token use as well as for tokenization. We will discuss the basics of tokens, tokenization, and token service providers (TSPs) below.

(more…)

Protecting payment card data is essential in all environments, including when card data is taken over the telephone. Areas of organizations that interact with sensitive data in a telephone-based environment are particularly susceptible to fraud or theft of cardholder data. As such, protecting telephone-based payment card data is essential for all businesses that conduct transactions over the phone.

(more…)

Recent statistics have shown that 42% of consumers feel that credit cards are the safest payment option to protect cardholder data for their online purchases. With more consumers focusing on purchasing online rather than via brick and mortar retailers, this means that online retailers must take extra care in monitoring their network resources as they pertain to their cardholder data. Consumers are well within their entitlement to expect that their credit card transaction is secure once it has been processed. However, that expectation might fall short if the pathways that the payment company develops does not securely transmit their cardholder data once the transaction goes through. It is for this reason (and many others) that securing access to network resources for any organization that processes and/or stores credit card payments is critical.

(more…)

Consistently testing and quickly addressing risks to your network security system is not just one of the common security controls that can be looked over, it is imperative to effective and safe performance. If your companys security system does not receive the necessary updates to its infrastructure, it can be potentially devastating for your organization.

Not being on top of these essential tasks can open the door to a myriad of cyber security threats from internal and external sources that could take years to recover from. However your business plans to approach security system testing, you should make sure you efforts fall in line with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements. (more…)