Don't lose my data
Have you've ever wondered why whenever there is a major blunder – such as the loss of the records of 25 million people who receive child benefit – that a series of similar screw-ups always seems to come to light?
Well, the truth is that such incidents are rarely isolated. The current level of data loss is what's been happening for years. It's just that now the spotlight of the press is on this area, everything is reported. However, before we get too smug about it, there's no doubt that if the same focus was applied to the nearly four million SMEs in the UK, there would be many more stories of customer data being put in bins, lost memory sticks and so on.
However, there's an interesting side effect to this. All of a sudden, everyone's interested in security, and the payment card industry is no exception. If your business accepts payment cards and you haven'T heard of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and 3D Secure (also known as Verified by Visa and Mastercard SecureCode), then you soon will.
PCI DSS is a mandatory standard and 3D Secure is a sort of Chip and PIN (CnP) online. Both have been notable for the lack of communication and enforcement from the banks. This is rapidly changing, because the implementation of CnP has brought a significant reduction in fraud on the high street, accompanied by an increase in online scams.
This in turn has prompted the card industry to start more rigorous enforcement of the rules. Now they are chomping at the bit to throttle the surge in online fraud. This could mean a rapid rollout, which spells danger for small and medium sized online merchants, as implementing PCI DSS and 3D Secure will be no walk in the park. However, there are ways through the morass and next month I'll take a look at some of the practical ways of dealing with these issues.
Chris Barling is CEO of Actinic.
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BusinessZONE - 9-Jan-2008
Categories: e-Business blog
Story read: 1381
