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Online Security, Fraud Prevention And Why PCI DSS Matters To You

Written by Simon Armstrong
Thursday, 02 July 2009 01:00

I was reading some research recently which indicated that 60 per cent of Online Retailers do not know if they are currently PCI DSS compliant.

So I thought it was worth explaining why PCI DSS is important and how you can achieve compliance, and highlighting this and some of the other security measures provided with Actinic Payments.

PCI DSS

PCI DSS addresses security concerns in relation to the storage of payment card data. It is a single standard supported by all major players including Visa and Mastercard.

Three factors make PCI DSS compliance important for your business:

  • PCI DSS compliance is compulsory for all merchants who accept card payments
  • You must be compliant whether you handle, process or store payment card details, on computer or on paper
  • There are severe penalties if card information is compromised as a result of non-compliance.

You can become PCI DSS compliant in one of two ways:

  • You can become compliant yourself. In practice, this is rather complicated, difficult and expensive.
  • You can have your customers and staff enter card details only into sites and systems supplied by a third party who are themselves PCI DSS compliant.

If your buyer enters card details into a page of your own web site, your web site must be PCI DSS compliant even if those details are passed to a compliant payment processor. This is because any compromise of your web site could lead to a rogue third party being able to acquire the card details.

Using Actinic Payments ensures that all servers where you or your customers key in payment card details are PCI DSS compliant. The CreditCall infrastructure (which powers Actinic Payments) has been accredited by qualified assessors to the highest possible standard available under the PCI DSS scheme.

3D Secure

3D Secure is the online equivalent of Chip and PIN. Buyers are required to enter a password whenever they use their card online. The password is sent directly to Visa (Verified by Visa) or to Mastercard (Mastercard SecureCode) for approval or rejection.

Just as a Chip and PIN card can't be used without a pin number, a card protected by 3D Secure cannot be used without the password. The banks are so confident in the system that they accept the risk even if the cardholder claims not to have taken part in the transaction.

Actinic Payments is fully compliant with the 3D Secure standard.

The 3rd Man Fraud Prevention

The latest release of Actinic Payments also provides automated fraud screening by the 3rd Man for every order you receive.

The 3rd Man is Europe's leading fraud screening company. They automatically check card orders against a wide variety of factors and provide a simple red or green traffic light to indicate whether an order is safe or not, together with supporting data.