Comply. Compete.
Ignore either at your peril.
Whether it be the damages that could result from a data breach caused by lax security or the operational inefficiencies—and thus competitive disadvantages—that could be caused by cumbersome policies and procedures, your organization must mitigate risks on multiple fronts as you seek to satisfy regulators, customers, and stakeholders alike.
Any business that stores, transmits, or processes payment card data has a responsibility to ensure that those transactions are secure. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has a path for that.
The PCI DSS issued a set of 12 high-level requirements known as the PCI compliance checklist. These requirements apply to merchants of all sizes that accept consumer credit and debit cards. At its core, the PCI compliance checklist is designed to protect consumer card data from fraud and data breaches. Although the requirements mandated by PCI DSS are not law, there are hefty fees and fines for non-compliance.
There you are, scrolling through Instagram in between other mundane tasks, or checking out the current events on Facebook. You then go to the latest relevant tweets, and wait… is that a virus lurking in the virtual shadows? Nah, it’s just an advertisement asking you to click on an image of a nice sweater. You were just talking about how it gets cold in the office and you need some new appropriate yet stylish professional attire. You click on the link and next thing you know you are in the vortex of so many other online shopping opportunities. Shopping is literally at the tip of our fingertips with a simple mouse click, and has become increasingly popular online on computers, tablets, and other cellular devices. It is possible to order anything online and have it delivered directly to you and with the increase in online purchases, cybercriminals simply must wait in the background to trap consumers rushing to get the best deals.
Living in a digital age has made it far more difficult to protect our homes and families from threats we cannot physically see. Technology is everywhere when our homes becomes smart homes and schools providing online platforms for education at an early age. Although it may seem that malware attacks and cybercrime live in the adult world, cyber thieves regularly target children and teens where they’re most active – chat rooms, social media, video streaming sites and online video games. Children are good targets because they may have high levels of trust in people and low levels of knowledge in cybersecurity. According to the department of Homeland Security, kids between the ages of 8-18 spend an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes per day online. Assuming a child sleeps eight hours a day, this means almost HALF their time awake is spent online! While the benefits are fantastic, there are great possible threats posed to children on the internet.
