Ultimate Guide to PCI DSS Compliance

Vimal Mohan

Vimal Mohan

Nov 24, 2023

As a founder, it is crucial that you see compliance as an asset rather than a hindrance in operations or a financial burden. Sooner or later, the business development team or your prospects themselves will urge you to demonstrate compliance.

If you are wondering if now is the right time for your organization to become PCI DSS compliant? Then, this article is for you. It walks you through the nuances of why PCI compliance regulations, its importance, the costs of non-compliance, and includes PCI compliance guidelines to help you become PCI compliant.

What is PCI DSS Compliance? 

PCI DSS compliance also known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard dictates the adherence to security protocols established by PCI SSC (Security standard council) for protecting cardholder data during transactions from distortion or unauthorized access to cardholder data.

In 2006 major credit card companies (American Express, Discover, JCB International, Mastercard and Visa) and financial institutions formed a set of security standards that outlined security measures for protecting customers’ card payment data when transacting with merchants and merchants’ vendors and service providers. This set of security standards was called PCI DSS.

Cybercriminals are constantly trying to steal cardholder data. This sensitive information is an accessible doorway to credit card fraud and identity theft, financial losses, reputation damage and irreparable harm to a brand’s customer relationships when left unguarded. If your organization behaves like a merchant or as a service provider which stores or processes, payment card information. Then becoming PCI compliant not only helps you minimize breach instances but also protects you from the cost of non-compliance. More on that later.

Check out PCI DSS 4.0 updates 2024:

Why do organizations need to be PCI DSS Compliant?

You are required to be PCI DSS compliant because with PCI DSS you will be equipped to protect your customer’s sensitive card data from physical and digital breaches. PCI DSS will lay the framework for you to deploy new admin access and technical systems (and upgrade existing ones) required to instil trust in your customers about the safety and integrity of their sensitive card data.

In a nutshell, PCI compliance guidelines help implement a wide range of technical safeguards to protect cardholder data, including access controls and password management, physical security, measures and documentation of the existing security program’s policies.

With PCI DSS, you can implement better security systems within your supply chain by requiring your suppliers to meet the same standards to keep user data secure. It lays down 12 essential controls applicable to merchants and service providers to remain PCI compliant.

In fact, 30% of small businesses report that they don’t know the penalties for non-compliance with PCI DSS 3.0. 
Source

How to become PCI DSS Compliant?

How to become PCI Compliant, is my posture secure enough? This is a question that often plagues organizations. To become PCI compliant,  a business needs to understand the 12 PCI DSS requirements, conduct gap assessment and remediation, implement and monitor security policies and finally complete an assessment for ensuring a secure payment ecosystem.

Still unsure on how to become PCI compliant? The following steps will help answer the question

Step 1: Define the scope of PCI compliance regulations for your business

The scope of PCI DSS certification is defined by the volume of transactions your organization processes annually. A merchant or business can fall into one of the four categories and then determine the compliance level and requirements.

  • PCI Level 1: Businesses processing over 6 million transactions per year
  • PCI Level 2: Businesses processing 1 million to 6 million transactions per year
  • PCI Level 3: Businesses processing 20,000 to 1 million transactions per year
  • PCI Level 4: Businesses processing less than 20,000 transactions per year

Here’s a detailed guide on PCI DSS levels

Step 2: Internal Risk Assessment

Risk analysis helps identify risks related to information systems and decide how they will be controlled and managed.  As a result of this analysis, primary and permanent (inherent) risks are evaluated, and prolonged or residual risks (configuration and change controls or not using processes, etc.) are examined.

To do:

  • Draw a line between production and non-production systems
  • Make an inventory of the critical systems and internal controls
  • Identify business risks, assign a likelihood and impact to each of them
  • Deploy policies and procedures to mitigate them

What not to do:

  • Run security risk sweeps only when you are asked to produce a risk assessment report
  • Keeping the risk assessment inhouse and not including external experts for an unbiased outcome
  • Work in silos without communication among your teams

Step 3: Gap Analysis & Remediation

PCI DSS Gap Analysis is an initial step in the compliance program. It helps organizations streamline their journey to achieve PCI Compliance. This assessment will help them determine where they are currently standing, giving them direction toward achieving Compliance.

This assessment helps you understand your compliance status and prepares you for the on-site assessments required to achieve Compliance.  

A gap analysis exercise aims to identify deficient controls that could lead to a failed audit report.

The next step after identification is to remediate said controls or deploy new ones to ensure the PCI DSS compliance requirements are met.

Usually, a PCI gap analysis is performed by an assessor who maps the critical information processes and technical infrastructure to determine the PCI controls required to be implemented. And this process usually takes between 5-7 days to complete.

Sprinto, at its core, is designed to seek gaps in the compliance framework and enable you to work towards closing any future gaps. 

Step 4: Policies and Procedure Mapping

The next step is to map internal controls to PCI DSS goals and protect points where card data enters, gets stored, and exits the organization. Also identify and eliminate out-of-scope items (with justification for each) to ensure a bloat-free audit preparation period and a lean-mean audit SAQ for the Auditor to review. Mapping controls for the 12 security standards and its 251 sub-sections can be daunting.

But that’s where PCI automation saves the day. Having a singular view of the mapping & evidence for policies and security measures ensures that you do not miss out on submitting essential critical evidence to the Auditor during an audit.

Step 5: Continuous Monitoring

Continuous monitoring and assessing the compliance posture is imperative in your compliance journey. Being compliant is not a one-time task. To remain compliant over a period of time, you must constantly monitor the controls you have in place to ensure data security while continuously assessing ways to implement new effective models while reducing costs.

Most monitoring and assessment models can be automated. Automating this function empowers your business to move away from the cyclic/periodic monitoring model to a more hands-on version triggered with every new instance.

For example:

Protecting secure passwords is one of the critical security requirements of PCI DSS. For this, a good trigger automatically runs the control every time a new user is added. A check can also be triggered in the subsequent follow-up instance to see if the password requirements are met.

At Sprinto, we automate the monitoring and assessment process to ensure that you have the visibility you need to remain PCI compliant throughout the year and fix patches that need fixing when patches show up.

Step 6: Fill out the Self-assessment Questionnaire (SAQ)

The next step for Level 2, 3, and 4 businesses is filling out the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) and submitting a report on Attestation of Compliance (AOC)

pci dss compliance checklist

Level 1 businesses must fill the PCI DSS Self-Assessment Questionnaire, an AOC, and get a Security Assessor’s Report on Compliance (ROC). This assessor should be from the list that the PCI recommends.

12 PCI DSS Compliance Requirements

As a business, you are expected to comply with all the 12 standards discussed in the section below that work towards contributing to one or more of the above-mentioned goals.

1) Maintain a Strong Firewall Configuration 

A strong firewall configuration must be put in place to protect your customer information, such as credit card payments /transaction-related information. The security parameters for this requirement are designed to monitor and secure ongoing and incoming data transmission.

What to do: Having your production environments protected is essential.

What not to do: Create a custom application for users (like your creative designers) with access to sensitive cardholder data storage servers, production environments, or critical business information.

2) Do not Use Default Settings for your Password Management Tools

Default settings are generic and easy to guess. These settings are commonly found in most servers, internet routers, firewalls, wireless printers, mail suites, etc. In addition to listing all endpoints and cloud assets that could be manipulated, this security requirement also mandates you to manually apply an algorithm-generated ‘strong’ password and change it periodically.

3) Protect the Data

You must encrypt user data using advanced hashing algorithms, tokenization methods, or other encryption methods that meet global standards. To do this well, vendors need visibility into all resources that currently store user information, including data types such as shared spreadsheets, logs, and unused databases, all of which can become security vulnerabilities.

4) Encrypt Transmission

Bad actors are always looking for the weakest links to access critical information; processing card transactions over public networks is one such weak link. You should know how and where card data is sent or received as a business owner. Using secure transmission protocols like SSH and TLS can minimize the chances of a wrong actor instance during data transfer.

5) Protect your Anti-virus Software

All devices with anti-virus software installed must be regularly updated to ensure protection against malware. However, there are instances where the attack is first targeted toward the anti-virus software itself. Constantly updating your anti-virus software on mobile devices, laptops, desktops, and other endpoints helps you detect malware and take necessary actions to remain secure.

6) Maintaining Security

The PCI DSS requirements emphasize a security protocol that constantly runs vulnerability scans and deploys patches. In addition, the cloud environments(Google cloud, AWS, etc), operating systems, POS endpoints, software, hardware (routers, switches), and firewalls, should be constantly monitored and updated.

Also, check out: Best PCI compliance software

7) Role-based Access Control

payment card information should be accessible only on a need-to-know basis to prevent data exposure within the business. You need to document all the users with access to such critical data. This list should call out their designations, duties, and access to this information helps them perform their jobs.

8)Unique Access

You must provide each user with a unique ID before allowing them access to system components and/or cardholder data. Unique user IDs ensure that when someone accesses cardholder data functons, that activity is traced to a known user, and accountability is maintained. Deploying strong access control measures solves for this.  

9) Limiting Access to Physical Data

Have security measures that limit physical access to sensitive data related to payment cards.

Installing surveillance tech, handling physical entry and exit points, and maintaining access logs of surveillance information is essential to remaining compliant. The most common protection measure is encryption? Others include user access control, using different electronic/magnetic storage media states, and surveillance technology.

10) Continuous anomaly monitoring

On a day-to-day basis, look for anomalies that could penetrate your security measures. Then, run audits and maintain an audit trail of all the security reports for at least 365 days. Working with security specialists such as SIEM, CSPM, and CASB vendors can help you get this done effectively. 

11) Run Periodic Tests

New vulnerabilities are created daily, making it easy for bad actors to penetrate your defences. To ensure that your security posture is maintained, you must run the following tests.

  • Wireless Site Survey – Driven by an increase in the use of mobile devices and the associated risks, your IT team should perform quarterly surveys to identify unauthorized access points.
  • Regular scans – All IPS exposed in the CDE should be scanned every quarter. You can source these tools from a PCI DSS-approved vendor.
  • Vulnerability scans – Run quarterly scans to look for vulnerabilities within your internal systems.
  • Application and Public network penetration testing- You must conduct these tests annually.

12) Infosec protocols for employees

It would help if you practiced rolling out [updated] employee handbooks to keep them informed of the happenings in the information security space regardless of their job profile. This helps them know what is expected of them to maintain a strong security posture outside the IT purview. 

Every employee must undergo training for:

  • Identifying vulnerabilities in systems, risks thereof and their impact on the business
  • Training toward user awareness
  • Incident response and damage mitigation

According to this security rule, all the employees of your organization are expected to undergo background checks.

Benefits of implementing PCI DSS Compliance

From enhancing overall security posture and protecting from data breaches to saving the business from customer attrition and financial repercussions, implementing PCI compliance guidelines offers a range of benefits.

  • Employing strong security controls with strong cryptography and best practices builds an optimised security stance and enhances operational efficiency. It also helps manage risks proactively and fosters a compliance culture.
  • A number of large enterprises seek PCI compliant vendors. So, it helps unlock corporate expansion for business.
  • Customers find it easy to mortgage their trust with the business with compliance confidence. They know their data is safe and handled securely.

Financial ramifications associated with non-compliance or breaches like fines, penalties, lawsuits etc. can be avoided.

What are the types of PCI Compliance groups?

There are 6 groups involved in PCI DSS Compliance namely the council, merchants, service providers, card issuers and merchant banks, QSAs (Qualified Security Assessors) and ASVs (Approved Scanning vendors).

PCI SSC

Formed by major credit card brands Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and JCB, the council is responsible for establishing and maintaining standards for protection of cardholder data.

Merchants

Businesses or organisations that collect, store or process cardholder data and are responsible for PCI DSS adherence are merchants.

Service providers

Organisations that handle cardholder data on behalf of merchants are service providers. These can be hosting service providers, managed security service providers, cardholder data storage services etc.

Card issuers and merchant banks

Card issuers/ card brands issue payment cards to customers while merchant banks are financial institutions that facilitate payment acceptance on behalf of merchants.

QSAs

Qualified security assessors are certified PCI compliance assessors who conduct assessments for merchants or service providers.

ASVs

Approved scanning vendors are organisations qualified by PCI SSC for conducting vulnerability scans for merchants or service providers.

How much does PCI Compliance cost?

The costs of PCI compliance depend on a lot of factors like merchant level, organisation size, current compliance levels etc.

Different compliance specialists therefore charge differently depending upon the comprehensive requirements of the organisation.

However, on an average, for small to medium size businesses, implementing PCI compliance regulations and achieving compliance (with certification) can cost anywhere from $5000 to $20000 and for large organisations can range from $50000 to $200000.

These costs can be reduced by 80% if you switch to automation with Sprinto.

What happens when you are not PCI DSS Compliant?

The cost of non-compliance is steep, with monetary fines ranging from $5000-$100,000 (depending on the nature of non-compliance). In terms of non-monetary aspects, your access to promote card-based technology transactions on your business platforms could be rescinded too.

Each non-compliance instance is flagged as a security violation and this could cause significant reputational damage too.

pci-dss compliance

Here’s a list of the repercussions you could face for being non-compliant:

1) Penalties

Both credit card companies and banks charge fines – of $5,000 to $100,000+ per month. And suppose a business gets fined and continues to ignore its PCI compliance requirements, it can even be removed from the credit card processing network. As a result, the organization would no longer be payment processors for its customers. This could be devastating for businesses that rely on credit cards for their sales.

2) Bad Actor Instance

PCI DSS compliance doesn’t make your business breach-resistant. And when a PCI DSS-compliant business becomes a victim of an incident, the penalty amount is significantly reduced. The reason being the organization, in context, did everything required to protect its secure systems in ways that the PCI DSS compliance framework dictated.

Besides, a security violation adds to the financial burden of a business as they will need to do the following: 

  • Hire an investigation team to identify the source of the breach
  • Conduct mandatory credit monitoring for customers whose data was compromised
  • Deal with lawsuits, if any
  • Handle loss of revenue driven by merchants cancelling partnerships (when your business is non-compliant consistently)


The average cost of dealing with each recorded victim is $150. When multiplied by the number of people affected by a breach, this value can get quite expensive.

3) Lawsuits

In case of data breaches, businesses are typically sued by vendors and customers. For example, Target had to pay a fine of $18.5 million when sensitive information related to 40 million accounts was made public following a breach.

4) Impact on the Revenue and Brand

When sensitive information is put at risk, the client’s trust in the organization nosedives, leading to negative word-of-mouth publicity and loss in brand equity. In addition, a bad reputation makes it harder to attract new customers or retain existing customers, directly affecting future profits.

How Sprinto helps you achieve PCI DSS Compliance?

Sprinto is purpose-built to offer a ‘unique-to-you’ PCI compliance solution. At its core, Sprinto is powered by an automation engine that automates most of the legwork that goes into getting your business compliance validated.

Every business entity is monitored at a granular level for controls and checks to ensure a seamless audit. Any edge cases are marked and evidences automatically catalogued and submitted to the auditor through Sprinto Auditor dashboard.

The dashboard gives the Auditor a single view of an audit report with precise segmentation for controls set in place, documentation for people processes, and so on.

How we simplify the PCI Compliance DSS journey for your business

Sprinto is purpose-built to offer a ‘unique-to-you’ compliance solution. At its core, Sprinto is powered by a proprietary automation engine that automates most of the legwork that goes into getting your business compliance validated

Step 1: Entity-level Mapping for a More Robust Security Posture

Any compliance aims to strengthen the security posture of an organization. The templated approach is rigid and approaches Compliance from a ‘checking a box’ perspective. Sprinto understands that securing individual entities checks multiple boxes and is time and cost-efficient.

Mapping controls to compliance requirements also ensure that as you grow your business, your future compliance requirements are addressed seamlessly with Sprinto.

pci dss compliance requirements

To simplify this:

For almost every compliance framework Sprinto does for you, it makes you future-ready by paving a path for your subsequent Compliance needs by upwards of 75%

The 12 PCI DSS requirements are mapped to 6 key goals of PCI DSS compliance and broken down into entities. Each entity is then individually addressed to ensure that your business has all the controls and checks to ensure a seamless audit.

pci compliance dss

Step 2: Implementing Edge Cases

Edge cases are not uncommon. An edge case could lead to an exception of Compliance in your report, and a templated approach towards Compliance does not account for these occurrences.

An edge-case could be as simple as one of your employees being away from work for maternity/paternity leave and hence not being able to encrypt their laptops or update their operating systems. You could encounter 100 more edge cases like these in your compliance journey.

In the templated approach towards Compliance, because the employee mentioned above could not complete their device encryption, this case would be marked as an exception in your report.

With Sprinto, you can mark these instances as edge cases with supporting evidence when submitting your audit report. In addition, the custom auditor dashboard we’ve built enables Auditors to review these edge-cases and consider why something was not done.

Step 3: Cataloging Evidence Automatically

Sprinto is built to automatically collect and catalogue the evidence required for a compliance audit. This saves our users (founders, CTOs, VP engineering, VP-Product) hundreds of hours in taking screenshots, documentation, assortment, creating and sharing 100s of drives in the pre and post-audit process.

We want clients to be able to focus on developing their next world-changing idea and not hustle through the intricacies and nuances of the compliance process. 

Step 4: Submitting an Audit Report or SAQ

The scope of becoming PCI DSS certified will be defined by the volume of transactions your organization processes annually.

At Sprinto, we understand that you’d need the most hand-holding in the initial phase of your compliance journey. We’re here with global, 18-hour customer support coverage when you need us.

Talk to our experts today to get started on your PCI DSS compliance journey

What you need to know: The Myth Busters. 

Most common myths about PCI DSS

1) PCI DSS doesn’t apply to small merchants who process just a few transactions yearly.

In reality: You need to be compliant even if your business processes one credit card transaction. You wouldn’t need an audit, but you still have to comply. Refer to the PCI compliance guidelines for more details.

2) PCI DSS applies to e-commerce companies only.

In reality: Every business that stores, processes, or transmits cardholder information has to be PCI DSS compliant. So even if your business occasionally processes transactions through POS devices, you’d have to be compliant.

3) If I’m 80% compliant, I’m good to go!

In reality: Unlike SOC 2, you cannot choose which TSCs apply to you. With PCI DSS, you must comply with all the six principles and 12 security standards. So, being 80% compliant is not being compliant.

4) I don’t process credit card data. My business only deals with ATM debit card data. I probably don’t need to be compliant

In reality, many debit cards can be used on credit card network segments, which puts them under the purview of PCI DSS. 

And so on.

These are a few questions your Auditor could ask when you file your PCI DSS Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). But, of course, as a business owner, you might not know these nuances, and that’s where we aim to be of assistance.

FAQ

What are the six PCI DSS compliance groups?

There are 6 PCI DSS compliance groups. They are:

  • Secure Network Requirements:
  • Cardholder Data Requirements:
  • Vulnerability Management Requirements:
  • Assess Controls Requirements:
  • Monitoring and Testing Requirements.
  • Security policy Requirements.

Is PCI DSS compliance mandatory?

The official PCI compliance guidelines clearly state that PCI DSS compliance is not mandatory; however, it is a means to ensure that your business can process card transactions without paying expensive transaction rates to financial institutions and payment industry giants. By being PCI DSS compliant, you also ensure trust in your users and potential business partners that your organization has the protocols and measures to protect data.

What are the PCI DSS compliance levels?

PCI DSS compliance levels are categories that define the level of compliance regulations that an organization must implement when becoming PCI DSS compliant. These levels are based on the volume of transactions, nature of the risk involved, and the organization’s historic record of security breach scenarios.

How much does the PCI DSS compliance process cost?

The PCI DSS compliance cost ranges between $5000-$200,000.  The cost varies on a case to case basis and the common factors that affect the cost are procuring new software, updating existing tech, training cost, VAPT engagement, risk assessment costs, auditor fee, and consultant fee.

Vimal Mohan

Vimal Mohan

Vimal is a Content Lead at Sprinto who masterfully simplifies the world of compliance for every day folks. When not decoding complex framework requirements and compliance speak, you can find him at the local MMA dojo, exploring trails on his cycle, or hiking. He blends regulatory wisdom with an adventurous spirit, navigating both worlds with effortless expertise

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