By Beth McGarrity
It’s that time of year…tailgating, parties and football on the television. And who can watch the games without the perfect snack? As I was making my favorite recipe for a 7-layered bean dip for last Sunday’s Redskins game against the Giants, I got to thinking about the perfect recipe needed to protect the multiple layers that exist in the payment process. There is no one magic ingredient that is going to secure your entire system.
So I sat down to write and share this recipe with our readers:
Ingredients
- 1 cup authentication
- 1 2/3 cups encryption
- 2 cups tokenization
- A pinch of education and training for both customers and internal resources
- A dash of trust
Directions
EVALUATE your network and determine access points and storage of sensitive information.
LAYER the security over your network using proven technologies to authenticate users and identify malicious traffic on your network. In addition to security appliances including firewalls, intrusion prevention and detection systems, merchants should secure payment data in-flight and at rest by layering point-to-point encryption and tokenization solutions.
MONITOR your network for suspicious activity.
EDUCATE both your customers and employees on security best practices to reduce human error and minimize impact to your security posture.
UPDATE, as necessary. A perfect recipe for security has to be analyzed on a regular basis and evolve based on new and emerging threats.
End Result
If you follow these directions closely – much like you would in creating the ultimate 7-layered dip – you will bring your transaction security to a completely new level. Each layer is critical to the overall success of your security strategy. One weak layer can cause the whole “security dish” to be foul tasting, and even worse, cause your customers’ vital credit and debit card information to be compromised.
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