Branden R. Williams, Business Security Specialist

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 15), Be My Valentine? standard

Sin #6 – Q/A Tunnel Vision The Quality Assurance (Q/A) program is in full swing at the PCI Security Standards Council. After companies started taking PCI DSS seriously and retaining QSAs, merchants and service providers realized that not every QSA interpreted requirements the same. One of the biggest complaints about the QSA community is variance in interpretation on key items that could impact the cost of compliance—positive or negative. The Q/A program was announced at the 2008 PCI Community Meeting ((If you are a stakeholder in PCI DSS and are not going to these meetings, you are missing out.)) and began to take effect shortly thereafter. QSAs were put on the remediation list as early as 2009. Myopic Assessment Views The ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 14) standard

Good PCI DSS, Bad Infosec Foundation You may also find that QSAs do not understand your environment thoroughly enough to make an accurate compliance call. More executives are telling me their recent QSAs struggle when assessing complex technology implementations. QSA work isn’t sexy like it used to be. Back in the day, my favorite projects involved helping companies rebuild their network to include security to close PCI DSS gaps. I solved complex problems involving hundreds of people, thousands of machines, and millions of dollars. It was taxing on my brain, but I absolutely loved the challenge! Solving PCI problems five years ago required considerable knowledge of how business processes and technology fit together. Most companies facing PCI DSS today are ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 13) standard

Sin #5 – The FNG The Flipping New Guy (FNG) causes havoc wherever he goes. He also goes by the Pimply-Faced Youth (PFY) in some circles, and is often labeled as having the talent to tame a lion, but the experience to raise a hamster. He’s the guy that just went to new QSA training, passed his test, and showed up to do some good, old-fashioned assessing! Three Days of Ground School One summer, well after I became a QSA, I earned my private pilot certificate. If you ask my wife, she will tell you she remembers me babbling all of these fantastic ((My word, not hers.)) bits of knowledge that I was learning every day, and passing the time in ...

Visa Allows Non-US EMV Merchants to forego PCI Assessments standard

Interesting note from Visa yesterday. They have given non-US merchants an escape hatch (Visa Europe’s version is here and differs from the Visa Inc. version in several ways) for validating PCI DSS compliance annually if they meet four specific requirements: The merchant must have validated PCI DSS compliance previously or have submitted to Visa (via their acquirer) a defined remediation plan for achieving compliance based on a gap analysis. Visa Europe provides a separate procedure: Merchant must have: previously satisfied PCI DSS compliance validation by completing milestones 1-4 of the Payment Card Industry’s Prioritised Approach for PCI DSS OR have previously completed milestone 1 of the Payment Card Industry’s Prioritised Approach for PCI DSS and conducted a PCI DSS gap analysis against milestones ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 12) standard

How to Avoid the Buddied-Up QSA If you are lucky enough to have one, it’s hard to avoid his impact. It could get even worse if the guy is also drunk with executive-sponsored power. When I was a buddied-up QSA, I told those managers to get a meeting together with the executive and discuss the technical and business constraints they faced. I also instructed them to make sure they do their homework. Don’t whine, and don’t focus on why you shouldn’t meet her standard. Bring everything to the table that is required to meet the executive’s directive. This should include any capital expenditures like hardware, software, and costs of people time, as well as soft costs such as lost productivity, ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 11) standard

Sin #4 – Buddying Up with an Executive Consulting is a people business. People buy knowledge, skills, and services delivered by other people. Unlike a product business, you can’t guarantee that each unit is exactly the same, even from the same person. And also unlike a product business, the consultant interfaces on a human level with various members of the executive staff. Strange things can happen when QSAs buddy up with executives. Let’s explore a situation near and dear to me. My Standard > PCI DSS Executives act different after someone suspects a security breach has happened on their watch. All of the sudden, they get religious and grow a tiny, beating security heart inside their otherwise empty chest. This ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 10) standard

How to Deal with a Power-Drunk QSA Above all, remember that he’s just a guy. He’s trying to do his job, just like you are trying to do yours. If you allow the situation to heat up, everyone will suffer. Play the game, work with the guy a little bit. Listen to what he has to say. Ask for suggestions on how you might meet the requirement in his eyes ((You may have to enable him further to diffuse the situation.)). Overall, he’s probably not a bad guy. Maybe he’s having a bad day and taking it out on you in an unprofessional manner, but that’s a bump in the road that can be overlooked. The first step is to remember ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 9) standard

Sin #3 – Drunk with Power QSAs are often in a position of perceived power. They sometimes exhibit authoritarian behavior, often times enabled by the very people they are assessing. QSAs are just people. You are hiring them to evaluate your performance against a detailed set of requirements. They are not peace officers, and they are most definitely not auditors ((Although some may be CPAs.)). Smart companies will use this knowledge to their advantage and work the psychology of the situation. The Psychology of the Situation The QSA is acting in a position of authority based on his role in the assessment process, passing the QSA training class, and his education and experience. Individuals inside companies being assessed rarely know or ...

Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA (Part 8) standard

The Role of the Acquirer Ultimately it is the Acquiring institution that must approve the compensating control. If you are like most companies, you most likely are dealing with more than one Acquiring institution, so remember, any control you propose should be approved by ALL of them before proceeding. Imagine the difficulty of getting your Visa/MasterCard acquirer to agree with American Express, and then Discover! It’s hard enough to get one institution to agree, but three? Consider this before you bet the farm on a flimsy compensating control that doesn’t solve the underlying problem. How to Avoid Compensating Control Chaos There is really only one way to avoid getting into a tug-of-war on compensating controls—don’t use them. Unfortunately, for most ...

January 2011 Roundup standard

What was popular in January? This month (and through February) I am posting my new piece, The Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA. The first draft was very long, but the final piece is around 6,700 words (and too hot for TV). I hope you guys enjoy this! Here are the five most popular posts from last month: Seven Deadly Sins of a QSA Series. This took the first and third through fifth slots this month. Stay tuned as I keep posting this series! At the end, I will have a PDF version for download with all of the content included. PCI DSS 2.0 Release and Review. For the FOURTH month in a row, this post appeared in the top ...