A huge portion of online customers still fears online fraud and their data privacy. The e-commerce industry is still dependent on Card-Not-Present or CNP payment methods, and there is a huge chance of data breaches and cyber-attacks in these payment methods. Although the ecommerce industry is treading through its threshold, users are equally worried about their financial data and cards security. Cybercriminals are always in the wander of any breach in a website to possess this critical information of the users, especially the bank debit and credit cards information. That’s why in an ecommerce store, the security of users’ data is the utmost priority. If you lose your customers’ data, you will have heavy penalties and lose a bigger thing: trust from your customer and your brand’s reputation.

Cybercriminals compromise customers’ highly personal and financial data, making the government introduce new laws in cybersecurity. One law is PCI DSS compliance, which regulates how companies manage payment data protection and storage. This article will learn about PCI compliance and why you must choose Adobe Commerce to develop a PCI Compliant ecommerce store.

What Is PCI Compliance?

What Is PCI Compliance

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards created to ensure the safety standard of credit card transactions for the companies who accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information. It aims to protect the customers’ card data in the whole transaction process and even after the complete processing. All the companies that follow PCI DSS are known as PCI compliant companies. There are 12 essential requirements, 78 base requirements, and 400 test procedures that companies have to possess to become PCI compliant. As an e-commerce store, if you become PCI compliant, there will be almost no chances of data breaches. The users’ data will be protected, and you have to face no legalities, no fines, and the brand reputation will also improve.

Importance Of PCI Compliance In The eCommerce

PCI Compliance In The eCommerce

The e-commerce industry is like a heaven for hackers as now thousands of e-commerce stores are available with millions of users’ data worth billions of dollars. These cybercriminals always wander about data breaches and steal customers’ card information.

There have been many data breaches and still users’ personal and financial information from the e-commerce sites. This has destroyed the reputation of brands and caused multi-million fees. There is a huge importance of PCI compliance in the e-commerce industry. Nearly one in four customers abandon a store without purchasing if he doesn’t have any data security guarantee on the store.

For PCI compliance, no store is small or large, and every store should secure its users’ data, too. The first target for the hackers is small stores lacking the high level of security that large companies possess. A hacker can hack a small e-commerce store more easily than a big site like Amazon.

After stealing the card information, hackers can use it for credit card fraud, inject malware into the site, and even steal your whole business. PCI Compliance will help you to secure the store using the latest techniques. The major or the only benefit is that you will never lose the precious trust of your customers. The customers know that if the site is PCI DSS, they can add their card details without worry. This will help increase the conversion rate and more traffic on the site.

Cost Of PCI Non-Compliance

Cost

If your e-commerce store is not PCI-Compliance, you may need to hefty thousands of dollars per month. The penalties depend upon the size of the business and the duration of the infringement. These are the penalties that you may have to face:

  • If your e-commerce store doesn’t comply with PCI Compliance within 1-3 months, then you have to pay a penalty of $5,000 per month if you are a small business. If you are a huge business, the penalty can rise to even $10,000 per month.
  • If the duration of non-compliance is 4-6 months, then the penalty would be $25,000 per month for a small business, and for a large business, it can be $50,000 per month.
  • If the non-compliance duration is more than 6 months, then the penalty rises to a huge fee of $25,000 per month for a small business, and for a large business, it can be $100,000 per month.
  • The penalties are not just monetary, but you may also be punished with a ban on usage of Credit Cards along with Forensic investigation, customer notification, liability claims, reassessment, Card reissuing costs, and much more.

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Requirements Of The PCI Compliance

There are 12 major requirements of PCI Compliance. These requirements are both technical and operational, and the major focus of these requirements is always protecting users’ card data. The 12 requirements are:

  • Protect your e-commerce store using Firewalls
  • Never use the suggested passwords; instead, create your strong passwords
  • Protect stored cardholder data
  • Encryption of transmitted cardholder data across public networks
  • Develop and maintain secure systems and applications
  • No access to cardholder data
  • Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access
  • Monitor all access to resources and cardholder data
  • Check the security systems and processes
  • Create a policy for information security
  • Assign unique ID for each person with computer access
  • Usage of latest antivirus software

Why Do You Need PCI Compliance?

why

PCI compliance makes it quite difficult and sometimes even impossible for cybercriminals and hackers to access your store and steal sensitive credit cards data in the complete transaction and even afterward.

There are security guidelines that protect card information whenever it is:

  • Accepted: either at a POS terminal or in an online store
  • Transmitted: either wirelessly, by phone or over the internet
  • Stored: either in the digital form or on paper-based files

Why Choose Adobe Commerce For PCI Compliant eCommerce Store?

adobe commerce

Adobe is a certified PCI solution provider, and its offering Adobe Commerce makes it easier to offer integrated payment gateways that let you securely transmit credit card data. It is a Level 1 solution provider and helps you comply with PCI/DSS standards. You will get a pre-certified infrastructure and integrated payment gateways by which you can securely transmit credit card data through direct post API methods or with hosted payment forms. You can also offer your customers a seamless checkout experience without storing any sensitive data on the Adobe application server.

It means that the payment gateways will not be stored in the Adobe servers and will never be stored on your website. Popular payment gateways such as PayPal, Braintree, Authorize.net also make sure to encrypt the data and store it through highly secure systems.

Shall We Use Magento Open-Source For PCI Compliance?

magento

Unfortunately, you will get the PCI compliance offerings with the Magento open-source free version.  However, we know multiple ways to make your e-commerce store PCI compliant:

1. Using 3rd Party Payment Gateway

Since you are not storing the credit card data on your server, you don’t need to be PCI compliant. Earlier a 3rd party payment gateway was responsible for the interruption faced by customers. But now this problem doesn’t exist anymore.

2. Use A SaaS PCI Compliant Payment Application

 You can use, for example, CRE Secure, which is PCI compliant. The customer will be taken to another website (change in URL), but the theme will be consistent with your store.

Wrapping Up

At Emizentech, we have expertise in developing Adobe Commerce PCI Compliant stores from scratch. PCI Compliance is not the choice but a necessity. You secure your customer’s data and make your store credible and risk-free. Our certified Magento developers are highly certified in developing Adobe Commerce stores with advanced features and functionalities. Let us know your requirements.

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Author

CTO at Emizentech and a member of the Forbes technology council, Amit Samsukha, is acknowledged by the Indian tech world as an innovator and community builder. He has a well-established vocation with 12+ years of progressive experience in the technology industry. He directs all product initiatives, worldwide sales and marketing, and business enablement. He has spearheaded the journey in the e-commerce landscape for various businesses in India and the U.S.