FaxCore’s HIPAA compliant fax services for healthcare enable organizations to maintain Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard compliance in accordance with the newly revised version 3.0. PCI DSS, which went into effect on Jan. 1 of this year, gives companies the entirety of 2014 as a grace period in which to meet all regulations. Given how many organizations struggled with the previous iteration of PCI DSS, the yearlong transition may not be enough time.
The skyrocketing popularity of e-commerce among consumers has continued to outpace effective security measures. Data breaches in the last few months of 2013, including the massive one at retailer Target that saw 40 million customers’ credit card information leaked, highlight a lack of organizational oversight that allows such incidents to occur. In the aftermath of this breach and others, there are often arguments concerning culpability, with retailers and financial services providers pitted against each other in the effort to pin responsibility and figure out who will foot the bill.
Compliance remains far from universal
Although the blame in the Target breach lies with insufficient safeguards in the retailer’s supply chain, it’s fair to suggest that PCI DSS 3.0 is part of a larger effort to curb the behaviors that lead to compromised information and penalize those who even indirectly had a hand in a breach. Despite the recurrence and extent of such incidents, PCI DSS compliance was lackluster at best under version 2.0.
The Verizon 2014 Compliance Report offered some fairly sobering statistics concerning adherence to PCI DSS 2.0 (or lack thereof) in 2013. Last year, only 11.1 percent of organizations surveyed had achieved full compliance. The average level of compliance was 85.2 percent, a significant rise over the 52.9 percent average in 2012, but it was likely hard won. The introduction of a new standard will knock most enterprises a step back and push full compliance even further way.
How enterprise fax over IP services can alleviate compliance woes
PCI compliance affects virtually every aspect of file transfers and information exchanges. Many financial firms rely on faxes to share important documents and transfer sensitive files that require signatures and authorizations. It’s crucial for PCI compliance, as well as overall information security, that these records do not end up in unauthorized hands. This means that all PCI technology and equipment used to send and receive confidential information needs to be protected in accordance with PCI standards.
FaxCore’s fax over IP uses a hosted cloud server to send files, enabling them to be encrypted in transit, reach the recipient safely, and get PCI compliant file transfer. It’s an easy cloud based fax service to deploy, helping organizations struggling with full compliance to invest in infrastructure solutions that boost data management capacities without requiring significant resources to do so.
Only a proactive approach to information protection can lead a company to true PCI compliance, wrote E-Commerce Times contributor Kurt Hagerman. With PCI compliant software and fax over IP services, organizations can make a meaningful addition to their data protection capacities, not only to satisfy PCI 3.0 requirements but to commit to information security in a threat-laden era.
“Remember that meeting the new 3.0 requirements isn’t just about passing audits,” Hagerman stated. “In our fast-paced payment IT landscape, staying smart and protected is part of our commitment to our customers.”
