Month: April 2019

Why should Vendor consider getting PA-DSS

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In today’s modernized world, every aspect of our life is caressed by state-of-the-art technology and its wonders. Likewise, we have also boosted ourselves in the way we handle our money and process our transactions. From a single penny, we have made an astonishing journey to digital money. We are handling all kinds of payments by a single click via payment applications. It’s truly magnificent and a marvellous example of how we have grown.

The payment application we use does render us a flawless payment platform without letting us withstand the hustle we have to pass through traditional banking procedures. Even though the payment application is effortless in their style of work, it gives rise to a hesitation whether our card and personnel data are secure or not. How do these payment applications make sure that our hard-earned money is protected from unethical hackers?

These questions were also the primary concern of all the major card brands such as  VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS, JCB INTERNATIONAL, and  DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES. With the sole purpose of protecting their crucial customer data, these major brands collectively formed a global organization which was termed as PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry Standard Security council). For ensuring secure transaction on payment applications, PCI SSC published a global standard termed as PA DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standard)

What is PA – DSS?

PA DSS is a global security standard which sets requirements and policies intended to establish impregnably sound payment applications and assure user data security.

The standard came into existence on April 15, 2008, and was termed as PA DSS Version 1.1. Since its inception, it has gone through various updations and over the years, Version 1.2, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, and V 3.2, were introduced. The latest version v3.2 was released on May 2016. In conventional terms, PA DSS is certification affiliated to organizations which adhere to PCI SSC council terms with an assurance that the payment application remains protected.

PADSS standard is formulated to help software vendors develop secure payment applications that process the user data securely. The vendors should conserve critical data as such full magnetic stripe, CVV2, or PIN data etc, and they also need to ensure their payment applications support compliance with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards).

PA DSS makes sure that application must have secure password features, detailed activity logs, additional security for wireless transmissions.  The security controls in place keep a check on multiple aspects of the infrastructure.

PA DSS certification has a validation of three year. After completion of one year, the respective organization has to carry out the revalidation procedure to ensure that it stays compliant and is incorporated as a secure payment platform.

To whom PA DSS is applicable?

For PA-DSS, a payment application eligiblefor review and listing by the PCI SSC is defined as an application that:

a) stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data as part of authorization or settlement and
b) is sold, distributed, or licensed to third parties

How to be PA DSS compliant?

Any organization who wishes to be PA DSS compliant has to choose a PA QSA (Payment Application Qualified Security Assessor). PA QSA is an organization level certification accredited by the PCI SSC. They have the license to perform PA DSS assessment of an organization and implement the standards, requirements, and policies mentioned in PA DSS standard to achieve the same.

Please refer the below link to check the qualified payment application assessor:

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/assessors_and_solutions/payment_application_assessors

How will QRC help you achieve PA DSS?

Being a Payment Application Qualified Security Assessor (PA QSA) Company, QRC aims to provide additional pioneering, hassle-free, and cost-effective services for PA DSS Certification. Since its establishment, QRC has served more than 100 plus clients globally in the information security domain. As your PA DSS compliance partner, QRC will assist and assess you at each step right from defining the scope until facing the compliance audit.

3 Reasons Why ISO 27001 Certification Will Help

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It isn’t too tough to open a news website or a newspaper today and miss a breaking story about data hack or a cyber attack around the world.  Matter of fact, this is what pops up right at this moment – ‘World’s leading Crytpocurrency exchange hacked’

Surprised? Many experts aren’t.

Information security is one of the most important pillars of any company and unfortunately, it is one that is given a miss way too often also. Using a specification that would secure your information system could make all the difference though – like an ISO 27001. This would be a framework of policies and procedures that would include all the legal, physical and technical controls that would be involved in your information risk management.

Having an  ISO 27001 certification  would be a very strong foundation to your information security. In fact, it could also bring about the biggest difference to your business and your employees too. How?

  • Keeps client data secure: As it should be, your employees should be protecting the data that belongs to your client. However, it is also critical to understand that your organisation holds plenty of employee information. Knowing that their data is protected at all times would make all the difference to them. They would be 100% that no data leakage or theft would be possible if a ISO 27001 certification is done. This is simply because it requires to have a centrally managed framework to keep any information secure.
  • More work, more responsibility: Let’s be honest now, everyone wants to walk up the career ladder and you can help your employees do just that by adopting ISO 27001 in your organisation. If your company were to follow a certification like this, it would only give your clients and prospects more confidence in your operations. The fact that you would commit to information security would give you a competitive edge and that positive growth in work would rub off on your employees too. Undoubtedly, an achievement of this kind would be a deal winner for your sales team during their pitches. More work, more growth, only means happier employees.
  • Job security: Having information security and processes in place helps employees control any form of data breaches. A breach of data could be catastrophic for one’s job and that risk is taken care of when you have a certification of this sort. Plus, you could lose a potential customer because of a data breach and that could have implications with jobs within the company. Also, learning the do’s and do not’s of such a certification would give your employees better experience helping them to achieve more in their career.

When you think about the advantages that are at hand by simply implementing a  ISMS certification  – it is quite obvious that employees would want it to be a part of their working environment. Would you be looking to bring that advantage to your business too?

Does Business Need PCI DSS Readiness Assessment?

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Understanding the need of PCI DSS in your industry is the first step towards securing your business. The amount of risk is tremendous without it. Not too long ago, massive retail chain Target revealed that credit and debit card information of 40 million customers had been compromised in a cyber-attack. Such an attack can have disastrous impacts on the business of a huge brand like Target – let along imagine the consequences to deal with in a smaller company.

Before you even look at analysing if your business needs PCI DSS, you need to know what a standard like this does to your business. In the simplest form –

  1. It builds and maintains a secure network
  2. Keeps all the cardholder data and information safe
  3. Prepares strong access control measures all the time
  4. Analyse and review a vulnerability management program
  5. Test the networks regularly
  6. Maintain a policy towards information security.

Pre-analysis of your compliance

Now, to have this implemented, you first need to schedule an official PCI audit which would validate your company’s compliance. This is called a PCI DSS gap assessment and will uncover any security issues that may be present. Apart from this, a self-assessment questionnaire would deeply help understand if such a system would be feasible for your business too. To do this, you need to

  1. Review your existing infrastructure right from the network to the access control.
  2. Understand where your cardholder data is stored, processed or transmitted in your system.
  3. Create a baseline scope or present status for the PCI compliance.
  4. Identify the difference between the scope and the requirements

Many businesses miss out the key benefits of having such a certification. One of our clients (newly formed small-business), wanted to look at having PCI DSS gap assessment done for their business. Of course, they had compliance issues and up-scaling their present infrastructure would cost them a lot of money.

As per recommendations, a  PCI DSS Gap Assessment  was done which saved them the entire upgrade – plus implementing the changes on this gap assessment, we were able to change many controls which not only simplified their annual assessment but also reduced the costs that were attached to it.

A simple assessment can go a long way in not only creating a better structure within your business, maintaining quality but also in saving you or your client a lot of money. Moreover, being compliant gives you a huge advantage over other competitors too as well as gives your clientele a lot of confidence in your services. If you are looking for an assessment of this kind, reach out to us and we’d be happy to help.

How to Measure your Enterprise Risk Management

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One of the most common questions asked in our industry is ‘How can we accurately measure your enterprise risk management effectiveness’?

Heard it too? Well, we are not surprised. It is one of the simplest questions to be asked and let us tell you, there is no simple answer. When you have so many different beams at work within and external to the company that determines the organisation’s goals – how would one plan to measure the success of  enterprise risk management? At the end of the day, does it not depend upon the decisions the company’s management takes? Would such a risk management have a meaningful difference? Here are ways you can measure its effectiveness –

  1. Follow the right metrics:  To understand the success of such a management system, you need to first note down the goals and then look at the right metrics to know if they’re being met. What could an objective be? Well, reducing performance variability to a level which aligns to the company’s reputations and the goals. An even better metric would be to update risk management capabilities continuously in the surrounding business environment. Keep a goal to achieve based to track an ‘early mover’ advantage and then look at the specific implantation to rate success.
  2. How would your business react to an unforeseen event? :  It is one of the most common misses in the industry today. We tend to look at all that is green that we forget a potential risk. In case your company was to lose its biggest revenue source – a strategic perspective applied to operation risks focuses towards the entire value chain. The organisation’s readiness to such an event needs to be checked and focussed on at all times. The success measure would be to navigate through the unexpected loss and the routes to overcome it.
  3. Is ERM integrated in your core processes? :  Unless it is integrated in your business, you’re not going to get great differences. A keen look at the company’s strategy setting, annual planning, budgeting or capital expenditure with ERM would be a must. Not only would it bring in more engagement from the right people, it would also intensify the success parameters and goals.
  4. Identify the risks at the right time:  If your ERM is focussed on noticing the possible risks at the right stage and inform the key stakeholders about it – it would be the right to be followed and implemented. The way to measure success would be to look at the steps taken to rectify or address the risk detected. Early warning systems would use data analytics, stress testing and scenario analysis to monitor risks and assess the impact on performance.
  5. Improving the shareholder value:  The most important goal for the board and rightly so too. A firm with an effective ERM should be able to acknowledge the capabilities and highlight them the right way. In case your company’s reputation grows because of the risk management – you should be able to show higher share valuations.

With these parameters, you should be able to determine if your  enterprise risk management  is effective and driven the right way. If you have been thinking of implementing such a management in your company or even check the effectiveness – we’d be happy to guide and help you achieve your goal.