Why PCI Compliance is important

Why is PCI compliance important?            The (PCI) Payment Card Industry's Security Standards Council was established to assist merchants protect card holder data.  The PCI SSC founding members are American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc. Goals of the PCI Data Security Standard Build and maintain a secure network Protect cardholder data Maintain a vulnerability management program Implement strong access control measures Regularly monitor and test networks Maintain an information security policy WHY SECURE?  Customers worry about theft of their data. You should worry about business fallout. More than 340 million computer records containing sensitive personal information have been involved in security breaches in the U.S. since 2005.  Now criminals are shifting sights to small merchants because many have lax security for cardholder data. More than 80% of attacks target small merchants. If you are at fault for a security breach, business fallout can be severe: Fines and penalties Termination of ability to accept payment cards Lost confidence, so customers go to other merchants Lost sales Cost of reissuing new payment cards Legal costs, settlements and judgments Fraud losses Higher subsequent costs of compliance Going out of business What data thieves are after The object of desire is cardholder data. By obtaining the Primary Account Number (PAN) and sensitive authentication data, a thief can impersonate the cardholder, use the card, and steal the cardholder's identity. Sensitive cardholder data can be stolen from many places: Compromised card reader Paper stored in a filing cabinet Data in a payment system database Hidden camera recording entry of authentication data Secret tap into your store's wireless or wired network Defining "sensitive cardholder data" Everything at the end of a red arrow is sensitive cardholder data. Anything on the back side and CID must never be stored. Everything else you store must be for a good business reason, and that data must be protected.    Small Merchants You must secure cardholder data to meet Payment Card Industry rules! Small merchants are prime targets for data thieves. It's your job to protect cardholder data at the point-of-sale. If cardholder data is stolen - and it's your fault - you could incur fines, penalties, even termination of the right to accept payment cards! HOW TO SECURE? Let the PCI Data Security Standard guide your program for security The PCI DSS has become a model framework for security. It has best practices representing years of experience from security experts around the world. The standard works for the biggest corporations. And it will work for you! Quick steps to security! Buy and use only approved PIN entry devices at your points-of-sale. Buy and use only validated payment software at your POS or website shopping cart. Do not store any sensitive cardholder data in computers or on paper.  Never print the full card number on a receipt. Use a firewall on your network and PCs. Make sure your business network wireless router is password-protected and uses encryption. Use strong passwords. Be sure to change default passwords on hardware and software - most are unsafe! Regularly check PIN entry devices and PCs to make sure no one has installed rogue software or "skimming" devices. Teach your employees about security and protecting cardholder data. Questions? We at Frontline Processing are here to help.  We're all in this together.  Protecting card holder data is in all of our best interests and it's not as scary as it might sound.  Call us at 406-585-7443 or email us at PCI@FrontlineProcessing.com for assistance.

Now is the time to think about Gift Cards for the Holidays

The appeal of gift cards is obvious. They save time and mental energy for purchasers, who don't have to struggle to choose the right present. A $50 gift card from Barnes & Noble somehow seems more thoughtful than simply slipping two twenties and a bunch of wrinkled ones into an envelope. For recipients, gift cards ward off the uncomfortable and highly inefficient process of receiving and returning unwanted gifts. Every recipient of a gift card can be honestly and genuinely gracious-who doesn't like free money, after all? 

Retailers love gift cards. They're high-margin, low-maintenance sales. They stimulate much-wanted traffic in the post-holiday season doldrums of January and February, especially at restaurants. And to the extent gift cards save merchants the expense and hassle of handling returns of unwanted gifts, they are a huge boon. 

Buy a gift card and you're essentially lending cash to the retailer today that is paid back through merchandise tomorrow, or next week, or next month. 

According to a recent survey from the Consumer Reports National Research Center, 65% of gift card users end up spending more than the card's face value.  A CRNRC survey found that 25% of consumers have at least one gift card from last year's holiday season that they still haven't used.

  

Now is the time to get started so you are ready for the holiday season.  Let us show you how gift cards will help your business.  We can provide custom designed cards with your artwork or choose from a wide variety of stock designs.

Call or email us now and receive 100 free cards.

(866) 651-3068

Sales@Frontlineprocessing.com

www.FrontlineProcessing.com

Sun and LCD screens

A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a thin, flat electronic visual display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals (LCs). LCs do not emit light directly.   Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, and two polarizing filters, the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other.  

Whew!

That was a lot of technical stuff you probably don't care about.  What you do need to know about is sun and heat on your credit card terminal can make for a bad day when a customer us ready to pay.  So we want to care for credit card terminals properly. That means keeping direct sunlight off the LCD display.  If your LCD display is exposed to sunlight, it can heat up, turn black and become unreadable.  Typically this is not a permanent condition.  Cooling it down will generally return your display to normal.  One of our creative merchants placed a hot terminal in the freezer for a few minutes, however we don't recommend that.  Just take it out of the heat and in a few minutes it will cool down and be readable again.

We all enjoy summer, but remember that sunlight creates heat for your electronics so keep them out of the direct sun if possible and you will find your equipment operates much better.

www.FrontlineProcessing.com