The Payment Card Industry (or PCI) compliance is a dynamic and complex subject that affects millions of businesses. Regardless of size or number of transactions, all organizations or merchants that accept, transmit or store any cardholder data (or in other words, accept credit card or debit card payments) must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
We know that managing a business or organization is already a complex procedure and trying to keep up with the ever-changing subject and standards of PCI will probably take a lot of manpower and resources for your company – something that you could use for other more productive endeavors.
Sometimes, it is more cost-effective and better for a company to go for managed hosting services. However, it is important that you must choose a PCI compliant hosting if you accept online payments and consider the following issues or questions before committing:
- Does the web host have the capability and features that gives solution to the various PCI compliance challenges such as limited budget, limited internal resources, aggressive PCI compliance timeline, unfamiliarity with the audit process and potential fines?
- Does the host have rich data security expertise that cuts through the complexities of PCI compliance hosting?
- Does the host provide a proactive, knowledgeable client support from a team of data security experts?
- Does the host offer high-security solutions for service providers managing sensitive data for others?
There are various companies that claim to offer PCI compliant hosting and it doesn’t hurt to inquire from them their answers to the questions I mentioned above.
