Branden R. Williams, Business Security Specialist

Tokenization and Chargebacks standard

The NRF released a brief yesterday discussing the clarification Visa made to the operating regulations related the storage of full card data after the transaction. As suspected, some acquirers and processors were interpreting the rule to mean that Visa required merchants to store the full card number for things like chargeback processing ((The clarification was made on the Issuer side of the transaction.)). Of course, with a phone call, acquirers quickly seemed to learn what the real intent of the rule was. I can only describe this second hand, but here’s what I know for sure. Over the last 6+ years, I have worked with many merchants to help them rid their systems of PANs. In exactly zero instances, I ...

Level 2 Merchants, Are Your Folks Trained? standard

Is anyone thinking about June 30, 2011 yet? If you are a Level 1 or Level 2 merchant, you certainly should be! Here’s why: MasterCard had a rough time last year. They made some new rules, they changed the rules, and then they removed many of those rules. This year, they worked out the kinks (arguably something they should have done before the first announcement) and have a revised set of requirements. Remember us talking about reciprocity last year? From the excellent post by Chris Mark on the end of the Level 4 Merchant to the retraction and strange website posts and commentary by MasterCard, reciprocity was a hotly debated issue. As of this writing, the reciprocity on MasterCard’s website ...

PCI Security Standards go to Three Year Lifecycle standard

On June 22, the PCI Security Standards Council announced that effective October 2010, all of the standards under its care will move to a three year development lifecycle from the current two year lifecycle we have enjoyed since the standard was originally released on December 15, 2004. I had a chance to sit down with Bob Russo (VIRTUALLY that is) and discuss some of the changes and how that affects the standard going forward. According to Russo, the change is “a direct result of feedback from [sic] our board of advisors [sic] and participating organizations ((Quote shortened for brevity.)).” He believes the change is “a win-win for everybody.” In the linked press release above, the Council cites feedback from key ...

Herding Cats July: Back to Basics standard

Have you checked out ISSA Connect yet? The next issue is up there with my column, Back to Basics. This issue’s theme centered on the basics of information security, and what better time to take a step back and really evaluate what we’re doing? Are we actually accomplishing our goals? Or just treading water? And do you want to take away my man card after reading this one? If you are a member, log into ISSA Connect and join the discussion! Interact with great professionals globally as well as the authors that you enjoy reading every month. If you are not a member, sign up today!

No More WEP, Did You Make It? standard

Well, last week saw the passage of June 30, 2010. Do you know where your WEP is? For those of you subject to PCI DSS, you are no longer allowed to use WEP to “protect” your in-scope networks (Requirement 4.1.1, in the italics). Remember when PCI DSS 1.2 came out and you thought you had plenty of time? Hopefully you planned well. I have not run into too much WEP on in-scope networks in the last year or so. I still see it in retail locations for inventory control or other types of wireless networking, but those are usually firewalled off from the POS environment. Is anyone out there still using WEP?

June 2010 Roundup standard

What was popular in June? Would it shock you to know that my most popular post by far this month was the review on the Hoffacino? It’s second all-time to my post on Upgrading to Snow Leopard. So if any other prominent information security pros want to have me try and review their crazy Starbucks creations, bring it on! Here are the five most popular posts from last month: Pwn3d by the Hoffacino. As @Beaker says, another one bites the dust. I did it. I rode the carmel colored, caffeine loaded pony known as the Hoffacino. Who says living life through chemical stimulants isn’t fun? This was BY FAR the most popular post. Why ISAs are Good for QSAs. This ...

PCI Doesn’t Take Vacations standard

I was lucky enough to spend some quality time away from the tubes last week, and while I am not part of a rogue PCI enforcement militia, I do tend to observe how organizations tackle security and compliance issues. For the first time, I found a rather unique disclaimer that was mere feet away from the Point of Interaction. It shocked me so much, I snapped a picture to make sure I got the wording correct. It plainly stated: WARNING: The method used to authenticate credit card transactions for approval is not secure and personal information is subject to being intercepted (the original sticker said ‘intercetped’) by unauthorized personnel. I promptly copied the phone number down and passed it to ...

VLANs and Segmentation standard

I was following an email trail from a few colleagues and it dawned on me that I had not written about the use of VLANs with respect to PCI in this blog. If you purchased Anton & my book, you can get a great, real-life example of VLANs in the second case study in Chapter 4, Building and Maintaining a Secure Network entitled, “The Case of the Large, Flat Corporate Network.” The question that was asked is, “Can a VLAN be used as a way to segment a network?” Of course, the answer (as always) is “It depends on how you are using it.” If you are using simple 802.1q tagging with no other controls, that is not considered good ...

RSA Security Brief, Secure Payment Services: Card Data Security Transformed standard

RSA, the security division of EMC, recently released a new security brief entitled, “Secure Payment Services: Card Data Security Transformed,” that outlines the security implications and benefits of the emerging category of outsourced secure payment services. In fact, many of the challenges we’ve discussed over the years in this blog can be solved by accomplishing significant scope reduction—the surest way to reduce the impact of PCI DSS on an environment. The authors of the brief include Dr. Anton Chuvakin (Security Warrior Consulting), Sam Curry (RSA), Robert Griffin (RSA), Craig Tieken (First Data), Steven Wilson (Visa EU), and me. The brief offers practical guidance on how retailers, merchants, and other organizations handling card data can improve payment card security and reduce ...