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  • Payment card data is widespread
  • Critical elements of PCI DSS
  • Isolate, protect, and govern
  • Protect PCI in a data privacy vault
  • Next steps
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Protect PCI

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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), established by leading credit card companies, ensures that companies process, store, and send payment card information securely. PCI DSS covers critical security domains such as network protection, encryption protocols, access management, and monitoring systems to safeguard sensitive financial data.

Like Personally Identifiable Information (PII), payment card data is susceptible to mishandling, which can have devastating consequences. PCI DSS compliance is more than just a regulatory obligation—it’s vital to an organization’s security posture. Non-compliance exposes businesses to security risks and opens the door to heavy fines, reputational damage, and loss of customer trust.

This document outlines the critical elements of PCI DSS and the strategies needed to safeguard your organization’s payment card data. By adhering to PCI DSS, companies protect themselves and their customers from fraud and cyberattacks, affirming a secure and trustworthy payment ecosystem.

Payment card data is widespread

The complexity of modern technology infrastructures and the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks make securing cardholder data more challenging than ever. Below are some vulnerabilities organizations have to manage when they handle payment card data:

  • Payment service providers: A plethora of businesses rely on third-party vendors for payment processing, cloud storage, and other services. If these vendors aren’t PCI DSS compliant, it can lead to breaches of sensitive cardholder data.
  • Real-time payment processing: When businesses process real-time transactions, they balance performance with security. This challenge makes it difficult to protect cardholder data without compromising speed and efficiency.
  • Global operations: As more businesses operate globally, compliance with international PII regulations becomes paramount. Different countries have varied approaches to data privacy, for example the GDPR in Europe or the LGPD in Brazil. Navigating these requirements can be challenging but necessary to avoid legal and financial penalties in different regions.

Data breaches involving PCI are becoming increasingly common, affecting large corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises. Non-compliance with PCI DSS can lead to heavy fines, legal issues, and lasting brand damage.

Critical elements of PCI DSS

Critical Elements of PCI DSS PCI DSS consists of 12 requirements under 6 control objectives to protect cardholder data:

  • Build and Keep a Secure Network: Use firewall rules; avoid vendor-supplied defaults.
  • Protect Cardholder Data: Encrypt data at rest and in transit.
  • Keep a Vulnerability Management Program: Use antimalware and patch systems.
  • Implement Strong Access Control Measures:Enforce need-to-know access; use MFA; restrict physical access.
  • Regularly Monitor and Test Networks: Log and monitor access; conduct vulnerability scans and penetration tests.
  • Maintain an Information Security Policy: Keep policies updated and provide security training.

Isolate, protect, and govern

When organizations expose or mishandle PCI, they increase the risk of identity theft or fraud for individuals, leading to legal repercussions and compensation demands from victims. Businesses might face accountability for failing to secure data and can be liable for any resulting harm.

  • Isolate PCI:
    • Separate your data by using secure gateways and tokenization to channel your data between your systems and first- or third-party services.
    • Shield PCI data programmatically from your frontend applications.
  • Protect PCI:
    • Substitute sensitive card data with network tokens.
    • Safeguard PCI data during the transfer from a single payment service in a PCI-compliant manner.
  • Govern PCI:
    • Resolve data management concerns by assigning dynamic contextual claims to API authentication requests.
    • Define complex rules to create robust governance policies.

Protect PCI in a data privacy vault

A Skyflow Data Privacy Vault secures PCI data and strengthens your organization’s capacity to manage it securely and efficiently. This vault protects sensitive payment information and enables features that reduce data duplication risks. The data privacy vault also ensures consistent token generations across various columns and tables.

Create a vault to take the next step in safeguarding your PCI data.

Next steps

Get data into your vault
Get data into your vault

Optimize the success of your data transfer.

Remove sensitive data from files
Remove sensitive data from files

Deidentify sensitive data in compliance with data privacy regulations.