Plastic Money Security

By Author: any liza
Total Articles: 169
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Plastic money refers to the tough plastic cards that we use in the place of hard cash. It has various forms, some of which are cash cards, debit cards, credit cards, store cards and pre-paid cash cards. Using plastic money is supposed to be the most secure mode of payment but there are breaches even in this secure payment method.

The breaches can occur in a number of ways wherein the Card Holder data can be stolen and subsequently misused. There have also been instances wherein the security of the Credit Card Data Storage and the Credit Card Number Storage facility of companies issuing the different forms of plastic money have been found to be inadequate have resulted in frauds which have questioned the basic principals of Card data security.

In an effort to stem this stealing of the Cardholder Data and to help companies to prevent these types of security lapses, proper identification and analysis of the data storage risks have to be performed. Only then can proper and useful Card Data Security products be designed to benefit not only the companies issuing these cards but also millions of users all across the ...
... globe. Most of all the security products developed have to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards or PCI DSS. But what is the PCI DSS?

• Set of rules and regulations that need to be followed to ensure that the storing, processing and transmission of Card Holder data is done in a secure environment.

• The fundamental principal is to ensure protection of Credit Card Data Storage and Credit Card Number Storage facilities.

In order to achieve the above given objectives, the PCI DSS has certain requirements which must be fulfilled by the companies who offer these Credit Card Data Storage and Credit Card Number Storage facilities to its users. The requirements are as follows?

• A secure network has to be built and maintained and firewall has to be installed

• Protection of the Card Holder data has to be done by transmitting data in encrypted form

• Vulnerability Management Program has to be maintained by regularly updating the anti virus software in use

• Access control measures implemented have to very strong and effective

• The network should be regularly tested and monitored

• A strict information security policy has to be maintained to uphold Card Data security

Herein the Cardholder Data is defined as any data that is associated with the cardholder and can be used to identify him.

Since the storage , archiving and backup of Credit Card numbers and data is a very sensitive matter, the Card Data Security of these facilities need to be beefed up and they should adhere to the norms set by PCI in this matter. These facilities should actually go in for multi level security so that access to the stored information becomes difficult to attain. Since password protecting the system only is likely to attract hackers, strong cryptography should be used to dissuade any unwanted visitors.

Mike is writing about Data Leakage and Data Protection Policy available at www.groundlabs.com