The organization responsible for administering the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) has launched a new program to help enterprises conduct self-assessments of their compliance with the standard.

A Gartner Inc. analyst is urging companies that do business with Heartland Payment Systems Inc. and RBS WorldPay Inc. not to switch to other payment processors just because of Visa Inc.'s decision this month to remove Heartland and RBS WorldPay from its list of service providers that are compliant with the PCI data security rules.

Acknowledging the need for controls that go beyond those offered by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, a senior Visa executive Thursday described two new initiatives to reduce payment card fraud being tested by the company.

Visa's top risk management executive Thursday dismissed what she described as "recent rumblings" about the possible demise of the PCI data security rules as "premature" and "dangerous" to long-term efforts to ensure that credit and debit card data is secure.

A lack of financial penalties and a mandate to publicly admit data breaches may be clouding the real state of credit card payment and security in Australia, according to a senior executive from the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council.

In a country that's seen many regulatory compliance challenges this decade, the headaches of PCI security tend to be analyzed from a largely American perspective.

Robert Duran of Time and Allan Kintigh of National Card Services share their PCI auditing experiences. Why one's experience was unpleasant and the other fared better.

Passed your first PCI compliance audit? You've only just begun! Veterans say ongoing challenges with log management, database encryption and upper management buy-in mean the task is never finished.

While Willy Sutton never really said it, the truth is that people rob banks because that is where the money is. Today's criminals don't walk into banks with loaded guns and get-away drivers. Rather they connect from a remote location using a browser and are armed with hacking tools and spyware.