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Essential Best Practices for Ensuring PCI DSS Compliance

PCI DSS compliance is essential for any business that accepts, processes, stores, or transmits credit card data. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) establishes strict security requirements to safeguard cardholder information and reduce the risk of breaches.

If your organization handles payment data, you are required to maintain PCI DSS compliance. Achieving and sustaining it involves managing scope, implementing effective controls, and preparing for assessments, ideally through a continuous compliance program that simplifies oversight.

Is your organization prepared for PCI DSS compliance? Schedule a consultation to find out.

How to Stay on Top of PCI DSS Compliance

Organizations that process cardholder data (CHD) need to abide by the PCI DSS standards. Doing so can be challenging, especially for organizations newer to compliance as a whole. Failing to comply can lead to significant fines and even the loss of the ability to process credit card transactions.

Achieving and maintaining PCI DSS certification seamlessly comes down to:

Working with a quality PCI DSS advisor organization further optimizes the process, making scoping, implementation, assessment, and overall management significantly easier at scale.

Keep Track of Applicability and Scope

The PCI Security Standards Council (SSC) oversees compliance, and its individual members (i.e., Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB, and AmEx) enforce it. Staying ahead of compliance and non-compliance starts with understanding whether and to what extent you’ll need to certify.

The level of PCI DSS compliance required varies depending on your organization’s classification as a merchant or service provider, as well as the volume and nature of transactions processed.

For example, consider Mastercard’s levels for merchant PCI compliance:

While levels 2, 3, and 4 all have the same documentation requirement, the scrutiny applied and the potential for discretionary placement at Level 1 increases alongside transaction volume.

Mastercard also specifies separate levels for service provider PCI compliance:

Every organization has the same general controls to apply, but the assessment needed for each can differ significantly. See below for more information on how to prepare for each kind of audit.

Monitor Controls and Audit Readiness

For many organizations, the biggest hurdle to PCI DSS compliance is the implementation and ongoing management of all required controls. Similar to other regulatory frameworks, protections need to be installed to fully protect CHD across all organizational systems.

As an overview, the core requirements of the PCI DSS framework break down as follows: 

Each Requirement includes multiple controls and specifications, with testing metrics that vary based on your organization’s classification.

Once controls are installed, they need to be maintained for regular (re)assessment.

Practice Continuous Compliance Assessments

Compliance is not just about installing controls up to PCI DSS standards and forgetting about them. Organizations also need to maintain those controls over time, making adjustments and updates as necessary, and conducting annual assessments to verify that controls are functional.

One of the best ways to stay ready for compliance year-round is to implement a continuous compliance assessment (CCA) program with regular (i.e., monthly) readiness assessments.

As mentioned above, there are two main kinds of official assessments to account for:

CCA helps organizations know if they’re ready for an upcoming SAQ or ROC ahead of time.

There are many variations of the SAQ for different kinds of service providers and merchants, loosely aligned with the breakdown of levels detailed above. There are minimal differences between them, but organizations need to be certain they’re filling out the correct document.

Whichever report is completed, it must be submitted alongside an Attestation of Compliance (AOC) signed by the organization for an SAQ or the third-party provider for an ROC. The AOC summarizes and affirms the contents of the reports to be accurate and assures accountability.

Implement PCI as a Service (PCIaaS)

One of the best ways to ensure long-term PCI DSS certification, across compliance periods, is to implement a streamlined PCI as a service (PCIaaS) solution. PCIaaS providers combine all elements of achieving and maintaining PCI compliance into a single, easy-to-manage package.

For organizations new to PCI DSS compliance, PCIaaS providers may begin with a readiness or gap assessment to identify any potential issues. This is followed by a targeted control installation or remediation to ensure all required protections are in place and ready for an official SAQ or ROC.

For organizations targeting recertification, PCIaaS eliminates costly crunch cycles by maintaining continuous compliance, thereby reducing the intensive preparation required before annual audits. Rather than cramming any necessary updates or other maintenance into a tight window, experts spread it out over a manageable timeline.

Another major benefit of PCIaaS is the way it can streamline compliance across the board.

For many organizations, PCI DSS is just one of multiple frameworks they need to manage simultaneously. PCIaaS includes mapping and overall scope reduction to minimize costly overlap, navigate seeming contradictions or conflicts of interest, and streamline processes.

PCIaaS makes PCI compliance easy to achieve, short-term, and manage, long-term.

Streamline Your PCI DSS Compliance Today

PCI compliance is absolutely essential for any organization that wants to process payments securely and provide assurance to its clientele, personnel, and partners. Staying on top of compliance procedures means constant scoping and monitoring, assessing your readiness regularly, and, ideally, implementing a comprehensive PCI DSS management solution.

RSI Security has helped countless organizations achieve and maintain PCI compliance. We’re recognized by the PCI SSC as a QSA and Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) who can assist with both individual scanning requirements and overall SAQ/AOC/ROC preparation. And we’re committed to a human-first, disciplined approach, unlocking greater freedom down the road.

To learn more about our PCI DSS services, including PCIaaS, contact RSI Security today!

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