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A PCI Holiday Wish List

Written by Walter Conway
December 15th, 2010
As we enter the holiday season, it seems like a good time for StorefrontBacktalk PCI Columnist Walter Conway to put together his holiday PCI wish list. Unlike most lists you may receive, he is targeting each of his wishes to a particular party. And because it seems like a shame to exclude anyone, his PCI wish list includes card brands, trade associations, certain retailers and, of course, the PCI Security Standards Council itself.

Walt's first request is for the PCI Council to publish a full, one-year schedule of training sessions. The Council's training programs are excellent. Because of that, they are very popular and fill up quickly. As of this writing, the Council has not yet posted future training classes on its Web site. When that list is posted, Walt's wish is that it be a complete schedule for all 2011 courses.

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Posted in E-Commerce, In-Store, IT Strategy/Industry, Mobile/Wireless/Contactless, Payment Systems, Premium Content, Security/Fraud, Software
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One Comment | Read A PCI Holiday Wish List

  1. Todd Michaud Says:
    December 16th, 2010 at 3:57 pm

    Walt,
    Great column as always. Tis the season, so let me through an analogy at you…

    PCI compliance is a lot like dieting. There are a ton of people out there that know they need to do it, but they don’t. Just like dieting, there is a big gap between knowing what you should do and actually doing it.

    Educating an overweight person about the risks of heart disease, etc. will not encourage them to diet and exercise, no more than educating merchants about the risks of PCI will get them to install a firewall.

    Education is needed, but it is NOT the answer. What is needed is for someone to figure out the secret sauce that creates ACTION. The existing “liability potato” approach is not working.

    I don’t have the answers, but I have some thoughts as to what would help…

    In my mind there has to be financial benefit to becoming compliant and EVEN MORE for those that become secure. Reduce interchange for those who are compliant (versus fining those are not).

    Incentivize POS providers or processors to offer secure network services for merchants. Why couldn’t a processor offer a secure network connection to their facility? Why couldn’t POS provider integrate a firewall into their solution?

    For this to work, the merchant needs to do no more than sign a check. (At least for the Level 4 merchants out there.)

    Just my two cents…

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