Credit Card Security: How the New VISA/Mastercard Security Requirements Will Affect Your Online Order Processing

Visa, Mastercard and American Express have implemented new security guidelines for all merchants to ensure the security of transactions. The key features of these requirements are:

• Encryption of credit card numbers when transmitted and stored
• Restricted access of card numbers to employees
• Restrictions on how you may store and transmit card numbers
• For larger merchants, security audits and scans are required

For small merchants, the most important requirement is that you cannot store or send plain text credit card numbers. Emailing or faxing them is prohibited, and the use of an authorized payment gateway is required. The payment gateway encrypts the card number and verifies it online, so it does not have to be stored or transmitted.

For additional information, please see our credit card security white paper: CreditCardSecurity.PDF (Adobe PDF)

Call or email us if you have any questions or need further assistance.

We also offer security audits to ensure your compliance, and can assist with other proactive security measures to protect your ecommerce website (whether it is hosted by us or a competitor.