PCI Ready Hosting Solutions – Are They Right For You?
In today’s complex marketplace, merchants are dealing with an increasing number of regulations, both on and offline. Online marketing seemed like an excellent way to move products in a more virtual world, but these days, you’re talking about billions of dollars in transactions, and if you’re part of that landscape, you not only have to consider the actual credit card sales themselves, but also how to protect your customer’s data from a variety of different types of predators. If you currently accept credit cards on your site without a service like PayPal serving as an intermediary, ensuring you meet the PCI Security Standards Council regulations is not an option.
A Bit of History
The PCI Security Standards Council states that PCI DSS compliance can only be considered to be in effect when your company meets the regulations set forth for “security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design, and other critical protective measures.” In simpler terms, you’re doing absolutely everything you possibly can to make certain a customer’s data is protected.
When the idea of PCI standards was initially set forth, there were five different regulatory sets, each created by one of the major credit card companies . The overall intention was to help make certain that merchants could meet a certain standard each time cardholder data was transmitted. By 2004, the five companies had worked in unison to build the Security Standards Council, and today, merchants on and offline have to utilize the standards set forth if they want to be able to accept customer credit cards.
PCI Ready Hosting
One great way to ensure PCI compliance is to select a web host ready to meet these standards. By taking this step, you make certain that your customers have very few chances of experiencing a security breach. This step alone can really do great things for your company. It adds to the level of customer trust you’re attempting to build and it helps to keep you from dealing with fines for not meeting the PCI DSS compliance standards. Moreover, though, it helps safeguard the reputation of your business as you’re working just a bit harder to keep private data protected.
PCI ready hosts are typically experts in both security and compliance, so you’re more likely to have your questions answered by a professional rather than fumbling about with the guidelines on your own. What’s more, though, is that with PCI ready hosting, you’re typically dealing with a fully managed approach. That means that you don’t have to worry about a disaster recovery plan, as they probably already have one in place. Additionally, it means you have the high level of availability your business likely demands at this stage of the game.
Choosing the Right Host
If you’re ready to move forward with a PCI ready host, you need to do a bit of shopping. Choosing a host who can meet these requirements can help you select a reliable provider.
1. Many hosts offer customized solutions instead of bargain packages designed to meet the needs of everyone at the same time. This can help to accommodate your company now and well into the future.
2. Learn how the company you’re dealing with monitors security issues as they come up. You typically want to deal with a host that regularly reviews the security logs for a variety of aspects of hosting including servers and firewalls. You certainly want someone who will look for intrusions, antivirus issues, as well as file integrity problems.
3. Find out how many locations the web host has. Those that have more than one data center help to decrease the overall risks to your customers and your data. All of the locations, however, should be PCI DSS compliant.
4. Ensure that the host you select can help out during the audit process, as it can be rigorous, and you’ll want someone who is willing and able to help.
PCI DSS compliance is a great way to help keep your customers safe, and choosing a host that can help will make things easier on all of you.
Moonrise hosting is a managed hosting provider agency which provides expertise to various businesses. Their services include Windows hosting, Linux hosting and SSL certificates and more.
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