Businesses that use payment card processes will soon face strict requirements to ensure the protection of payment account data, and a local firm is working to help those group meet the new security standards.
SafeNet Inc., an information security firm based in Belcamp, on Tuesday unveiled the iKey 4000 USB token ? hardware authentication technology that protects data from unauthorized access to consumer financial data.
The new system meets the upcoming Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards requirements.
Firms such as American Express, MasterCard Worldwide and Visa International created the PCI Security Standards Council to improve the industry?s data protection standards.
The PCI is requiring companies to build and maintain a secure network with firewall protection and to protect cardholder data by encrypting the data across networks. The compliance deadline for large credit card companies and online retailers is Sunday.
“The payment data must now be encrypted, and that is a big deal for these companies,” said Andy Solterbeck, vice president of product development in the commercial security division of SafeNet.
“For some companies, it hasn?t been a big deal, but for a significant number of the companies, there was a big adjustment,” he said.
The reasons for the heightened standards, Solterbeck said, were increasing cases of identity theft and the need to protect against insider threats.
“The only way you can prevent insider threats is with data encryption,” Solterbeck said.
There?s an almost infinite amount of consumer financial information to protect. The credit card industry is the most profitable in the United States with annual earnings in the $30 billion range, according to credit reports. Americans charge $1.5 trillion dollars per year on their credit cards.
According to a survey of almost 700 companies, commissioned by Massachusetts-based RSA, the higher the number of transactions an organization processes, the greater the priority in places on securing against credit card data breaches.
“Companies handling credit card data face unprecedented levels of accountability and responsibility for securing that information,” Jim Melvin, vice president of security solutions at RSA, said in a statement.
