The increasing use of customer facing technology in the retail environment through devices such as Chip & PIN terminals, tablets and a host of other portable devices may have brought about a new shopping experience for many, but this has been at the cost of increased theft and fraud.
Merchants are concerned that a growing number of security vendors have been pushing them to buy security devices, and this has caused confusion as to the most effective route to take, to balance cost, compliance and customer service.
The threat against devices and the data that resides on or passes through them remains ever present. Criminals are becoming smarter and more determined by the day: on any given day, there are over 5,000 terminals available for auction online, and legitimate terminals in stores are permanently under threat.
In response to this, Ergonomic Solutions, a leading supplier of payment terminal mounting solutions, and current Participating Organisation member of the PCI Security Standards Council, has published a white paper entitled, ‘How to secure devices, data and networks : PCI compliance and what this means to you.’
The white paper is a best practice guide to payment data security that embraces not only the physical securing of terminals and other payment devices, but also the implications of PCI compliance on device security, management, registration and maintenance, as well as the payments environment.
Jan B. Jakobsen, Business Development Manager at Ergonomic Solutions, said, “The store in general and the point of sale in particular are at risk from increasingly sophisticated forms of criminality. Card data and PIN information are most at risk; records show that it only takes about 30 seconds to remove an entire card device and replace it with an identical one fitted with electronic skimmers.”
Jakobsen continued, “While most aspects of the PCI standards have been taken care of by the terminal vendors, the last line of defence towards potential criminals remains with the merchant.”
