Introduction
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a mandatory standard and consists of a set of security requirements. By complying with these requirements, every business that processes, stores, or transfers payment card data, helps create a safe environment, so card transactions can be performed safely. Responsible for this standard is the PCI Security Standard Council (PCI SSC), an independent union created by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB.
According to the above, the PCI SSC is responsible for setting the regulations of the PCI DSS and the organizations are responsible for their compliance with the requirements. The first version of the PCI DSS was released on September 7th, 2006, and it addressed the management of the PCI security standards and the improvement of the user security throughout the transaction process.
What Policies does the PCI DSS contain and why is it Important?
The 12 requirements of PCI DSS are the following:
- Installation and maintenance of firewalls.
- Non-use of default credentials and settings.
- Protection of credit card data.
- Encryption of credit card data during public transfer.
- Antivirus use and update.
- Development and maintenance of safe applications.
- Data access restriction
- Assignment of users to unique IDs
- Physical access restriction
- Tracking and monitoring all access to network
- Regular tests of security systems
- Maintenance of a security policy
Non-compliance with the regulations can have dire consequences for an organization. These include reputational damage, sales decrease because of the inability of companies to accept cards and penalties, such as fines. The exact degree of penalties depend on the size of the company and the duration of the non-compliance.
Logstail’s Contribution
Logstail contributes by assessing and ensuring an organization’s compliance with the PCI DSS via its log management and cyber security platform. The platform enables the organization to monitor every user related action related to PCI DSS on systems, websites or servers.
Logstail ensures PCI DSS compliance by collecting logs, checking file integrity, detecting intrusions, and providing real-time alerting and active response. It also provides dashboards and graphs, which depict company information in real time. Logstail allows filtering by different types of fields, including compliance controls.
The platform contains out of the box rules to test the compliance with the most important requirements of the PCI DSS, but there can be manually added more if the user deems necessary. Some of the most common default rules include 10.6.1 (review logs of all system components that store, process, or transmit cardholder data or sensitive authentication data at least daily), 10.2.5 (Use and modification of identification and authentication mechanisms and all changes, additions, or deletions in accounts with root or administrator privileges) and 10.2.2 (all transactions by root or any person with administrative privileges).
PCI DSS monitoring enables the user to early detect a security breach or any changes to the organization’s systems that lead to the non-compliance with the regulations.
Another feature that Logstail provides the user with is its alerting system. If something happens that can risk the personal data in possession of an organization, such as a security breach, the user can choose to be notified immediately.
Conclusion
In summary, the PCI DSS was created because of the need of protection of payment cards data. Every organization must be compliant with the PCI DSS. This is not only because this type of data is very sensitive. It is also because if a company is not, there can be significant penalties. Monitoring logs that are related to the PCI DSS is a very efficient way to ensure that your company is compliant with the regulations.
Logstail provides a complete log management solution which is necessary for every organization and brings this functionality to your hands. Now you can convert your data into actionable insights with just some tweaks and prevent performance and security issues. You can maximize the performance of your infrastructure or be notified of potential problems to take the appropriate actions.
In Logstail we are also offering the full range of services required to effectively mitigate cyber-attacks. Incident response and consulting, penetration testing and red team operations are aiming to help our customers reduce their cyber incidents. Sign-up for a free demo to realize the power of Logstail!
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