Category Archives: Site Security
Proper Data Security And Storage Methods (Page 1 of 2)
The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requires that any merchant who accepts, processes, stores, transmits sensitive credit card information must do everything possible to protect and guard that data. Proper data security and storage, however, can be a difficult thing to do in-house.
Data security and storage comprise a major portion of the PCI DSS and is also a necessary part of maintaining trust with your customers. In an age where personal information is a valuable commodity, customers need to know that their transactions are secure and you have a priority on guarding their personal data.
The third requirement of the PCI DSS states simply: “Protect stored cardholder data.” This may be a simple thing to say, but that doesn’t necessarily make it an easy thing to implement, nor does it downplay the importance. There are quite a few individual security controls that are required before you can say that you have created the proper data security and storage environment.
The first step is encryption. If you must store sensitive information on your own system you must encrypt it. This is a basic step because if a criminal intruder should happen to bypass all the other security measures that are in place, all they will find on your system are strings of random gibberish that are useless without the encryption key.
The next step is to limit the amount of cardholder data on your system. This includes only keeping the data that is absolutely necessary for legal, business, or regulatory purposes. When you don’t need it anymore, get rid of it. The less you have that is worth stealing, the less of a target you become. There are also a few things you’re not allowed to store at all. These include the full contents of any track from the magnetic stripe (like the card verification code or PIN verification value), or the three or four digit validation codes or personal identification numbers.
Of course, even if you’ve taken the steps to electronically protect data by encrypting it, there’s still the possibility that someone inside the company could steal or wrongfully employ the encryption keys. For that reason, the third requirement of the PCI DSS also mandates protecting those keys against misuse and disclosure.
Access to these keys must be restricted to the fewest number of people possible. These keys must also be stored in as few places as possible. Backups are, of course, necessary, but if you end up backing it up in too many places, you’re likely to forget where they all are, or accidentally place one where someone with criminal intentions can get a hold of it.
Requirement numbers seven, eight, and nine also deal with limiting physical access to cardholder data. These mandate that you restrict access to this data by to business need-to-know, and that you assign unique IDs to each person with computer access. These are measures that help ensure that you can trace the source of your problem, should a breach occur.
Church Virus Protection – 10 Ways To Improve Your Data Security
This day in age many churches are utilizing the resources the internet has to offer to spread the word and information on events to their partition, but they are unaware of the danger that their office computer is in from viruses and spyware attacks that are commonplace in the digital world.
If a church office computer contracts one of these viruses that data stored on your churches computer files can be compromised, stolen, or lost without virus protection in place. Statics show 80% of the time the church in question has not implemented any virus protection at all.
While these kind of attacks happen more often then most are aware of there are a few things that can be done to assure that your churches files and information is protected.
In order to help improve your church virus protection here are 10 ways to prevent hackers from infiltrating your system.
Install reliable anti-virus software (this is the best way to prevent viruses)
Never automatically open email attachments. Many times hackers will send a virus via email. All you have to do is open this email and your are infected
Scan all incoming email attachments before opening them. Anti-Virus protection will be able to alert you if any suspicious code exist within the attachment that could endanger your church data security
Configure anti-virus software to automatically boot when you start you computer. This works well because you will never forget to turn on the ant-virus software.
Update your anti-virus software frequently. By doing this church is assured protection from new viruses that arise.
Do not download programs from the Web from sites that you do not trust especially freeware or shareware sites, which are notorious for containing malicious scripts.
Do not boot with a disk in the drive. If the computer is booted with a disk in the drive it will automatically loads the disk. If the disk is infected it will load on to the computer without the option to scan it.
Do not share disk or usb memory drives. You do not know what or where the other person has been downloading from and you may get exposed.
You should always scan disks before using them. Anti-virus software will be able to determine whether or not a disk has been infected or not and in most cases remove the files that are corrupt.
Use common sense when using the internet. If you feel there is something wrong with a site or receive an email from someone you are not sure of their intent then chances are something is not right.
Following these 10 steps will substantially improve your church virus protection. By preventing a virus to infect your PC you protect your church and all your members. No church wants to find out that a malicious virus has wiped out all the office records. Utilizing these 10 steps will assure that this never happens.
Proper Data Security And Storage Methods (Page 1 of 2)
The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requires that any merchant who accepts, processes, stores, transmits sensitive credit card information must do everything possible to protect and guard that data. Proper data security and storage, however, can be a difficult thing to do in-house.
Data security and storage comprise a major portion of the PCI DSS and is also a necessary part of maintaining trust with your customers. In an age where personal information is a valuable commodity, customers need to know that their transactions are secure and you have a priority on guarding their personal data.
The third requirement of the PCI DSS states simply: “Protect stored cardholder data.” This may be a simple thing to say, but that doesn’t necessarily make it an easy thing to implement, nor does it downplay the importance. There are quite a few individual security controls that are required before you can say that you have created the proper data security and storage environment.
The first step is encryption. If you must store sensitive information on your own system you must encrypt it. This is a basic step because if a criminal intruder should happen to bypass all the other security measures that are in place, all they will find on your system are strings of random gibberish that are useless without the encryption key.
The next step is to limit the amount of cardholder data on your system. This includes only keeping the data that is absolutely necessary for legal, business, or regulatory purposes. When you don’t need it anymore, get rid of it. The less you have that is worth stealing, the less of a target you become. There are also a few things you’re not allowed to store at all. These include the full contents of any track from the magnetic stripe (like the card verification code or PIN verification value), or the three or four digit validation codes or personal identification numbers.
Of course, even if you’ve taken the steps to electronically protect data by encrypting it, there’s still the possibility that someone inside the company could steal or wrongfully employ the encryption keys. For that reason, the third requirement of the PCI DSS also mandates protecting those keys against misuse and disclosure.
Access to these keys must be restricted to the fewest number of people possible. These keys must also be stored in as few places as possible. Backups are, of course, necessary, but if you end up backing it up in too many places, you’re likely to forget where they all are, or accidentally place one where someone with criminal intentions can get a hold of it.
Requirement numbers seven, eight, and nine also deal with limiting physical access to cardholder data. These mandate that you restrict access to this data by to business need-to-know, and that you assign unique IDs to each person with computer access. These are measures that help ensure that you can trace the source of your problem, should a breach occur.