Nebulas Security, the IT security and compliance specialist has just published its Concise Guide to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standard.
The Guide gives detailed and technical analysis of all the solutions and technologies currently available to help companies comply with the new standard.
The Concise PCI Guide is the result of six months' work by Nebulas Security's technical team who investigated and analysed solutions and technologies from all the leading vendors. The resulting analysis is a very thorough investigation into the solutions' capabilities, based on Nebulas Security's technical expertise and experience of implementing compliance solutions. Totally vendor independent, the Guide provides a unique and unbiased source of expertise for companies needing to comply with the PCI standard.
The PCI data security standard is a common methodology designed to help companies improve the security of electronic payments. Drafted by the Payment Card Industry, the standard applies to all payment and credit card issuers and handlers. It sets out the different levels of data security from building and maintaining a secure network, right through to maintaining an information security policy. Each business must adopt the level of security appropriate to its activities, and the way in which it stores, processes or transmits credit card information. This complexity, combined with sheer number of vendors offering data security and compliance solutions has created considerable confusion in the IT market.
The Guide is a clear antidote to this confusion: it starts with an overview of the standard and explains what it is, who it affected and what businesses need to do to be compliant. It lists the 12 different security requirements across six logically related groups called "control objectives".
The Guide then looks at the different security requirements in detail and explains what each requirement means and what is needed to meet it. Using a matrix format, the Guide assesses different vendors' solutions against the specific aspects of the standard. As a result, businesses can see instantly which venendors' solutions are most relevant to their needs: saving considerable time when sourcing the most appropriate vendors.
Commenting on its publication, Nebulas Security's managing director, Nick Garlick said: "As far as I'm aware, it's a unique guide to this very complicated area. It's a very thorough document and covers every aspect of the PCI standard from its simplest to the most complex requirements.
Customers can see our unbiased assessment of exactly which vendors' solutions are most appropriate to their particular needs. It gives customers an invaluable overview of the PCI standard's issues, as well as being a very time efficient way of finding out what they need to do to be compliant. The Guide's independence also means that customers can source the various solutions with complete confidence, as we've already investigated and assessed them for their practicality and technical excellence."