The Top 5 Errors Companies Make When Getting PCI DSS Certified (And How to Avoid Them)

The Top 5 Errors Companies Make When Getting PCI DSS Certified (And How to Avoid Them)

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The Top 5 Errors Companies Make When Getting PCI DSS Certified (And How to Avoid Them)

 

 Achieving PCI DSS certification in Saudi Arabia is a significant accomplishment for firms that manage cardholder data, but it is not without hurdles. Many firms, particularly those new to the process, make significant mistakes that result in delays, audit failures, and increased PCI DSS costs in Saudi Arabia .

 

Failure to maintain PCI DSS compliance may result in fines, company limitations, and rejection of credit card processing services. Unfortunately, many businesses haven't had the time to thoroughly verify their security systems against all PCI DSS criteria.

 

 Create a diagram depicting all cardholder data flows across systems and networks.

Businesses that interact with cardholder data must be aware of where the data is stored. However, most organizations have failed to do so because a large amount of credit card data remains unmanaged and uncategorized, spread across multiple databases inside an enterprise.

 

According to expert John Kindervag, "This is a breach that should never have occurred." The fact that three-digit CVV security codes were breached indicates that they were being stored," in the instance of Target's high-profile data breach, which exposed 40 million credit and debit card details.

 Certvalue’s Approach : To comply with this PCI DSS compliance rule, firms must map all business systems via which cardholder data enters and exits the organization. Businesses can create a diagram that shows how cardholder data flows across systems and networks by depicting the cardholder data environment, devices, and systems, as well as all payment channels, applications, and associated protections on CHD based on location, and using a labelling method to identify the transport mechanism and critical dependencies.

 

Create, publish, and maintain a security policy.

 

Many firms, although having set security rules, fail to maintain them, resulting in many vulnerabilities throughout the payment lifecycle. This has been shown to occur in firms that have established and published a security policy for PCI DSS compliance but have not actually implemented it.

 

Certvalue’sApproach: When developing a security strategy for PCI DSS compliance, the organizational design must be taken into account. First and foremost, develop a policy that addresses all PCI DSS criteria and is structured in accordance with the order and language of the PCI DSS sub-requirements. Furthermore, firms must examine and update their security policies at least once a year to ensure that they remain effective.

 

List the devices and persons that have access to data.

Tracking card data is directly proportional to tracking the individuals who process and store it. However, the majority of organizations attempting to comply with PCI DSS compliance criteria fail because of this critical control. It only happens when corporations fail to track the gadgets properly.

 

Certvalue’sApproach:Risk and compliance team members who are responsible for assurance and operations must update device lists as personnel change. The ideal way to deal with this PCI DSS control is to keep an accurate inventory with proper labelling and establish a shorter update frequency for the list with four columns: device, employee, data type, and access type.

Verify the incident response plan.

Off-the-shelf security incident response plans are out of date and ineffectual in the face of a constantly evolving threat scenario. Verification of plans is only one aspect of compliance analysis and management. Each year, SISA conducts hundreds of incident response exercises around the world. During these engagements, we witnessed incident response plan failures, which were mostly caused by organizational inefficiencies that are a fundamental component of the PCI DSS standards. Failing to plan is intending to fail.

 

Certvalue’sApproach: Businesses that want to verify their incident response plans for PCI DSS compliance must mimic a real-world assault every six months and evaluate how key stakeholders react to it. In such cases, operational security teams must document issues and lessons learned in relation to certain PCI DSS incident response scenarios, such as organizational coordination, business recovery, data backup, and legal requirements analysis

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Monitor and manage all access to data.

All data custodians and key management professionals who grant access to data based on a business's need to know must bear primary responsibility for monitoring access hygiene. Businesses, on the other hand, overlook the significance of delegating this responsibility to someone who has official accountability. This has become increasingly important as remote working has become more common, as businesses are unable to ensure that the sort of access granted is suitable and that all technical safeguards for data access are in place.

 

 Working with a competent PCI DSS consultancy in Saudi Arabia or a qualified PCI DSS consultant guarantees that your company avoids costly mistakes, remains secure, and meets compliance objectives easily. Whether you're a startup or an enterprise, the correct PCI DSS services make certification a simpler and more inexpensive procedure.