What Is The Meaning of PCI DSS Assessment?

PCI DSS Assessment

All the organizations involved in the storing, processing and transmitting of cardholder data have to comply with the PCI DSS. PCI DSS is a set of instructions which provide the technical and the operational requirements for protecting the account data. Merchants, processors, issuers, users and service providers have to comply with PCI DSS.

The PCI DSS is given by the PCI Security Standards Council. The PCI DSS assessment involves evaluating the security controls and the procedures. It ensures if they have been properly implemented as per the policies. This is done annually for all the organizations involved in payment card processing.

When the organizations handle large amounts of transactions they are assessed by an external Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) or by the firm’s specific Internal Security Assessor (ISA). When the organization is small and handles a small amount of transactions they can use the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ).

How is the assessment done?

The PCI DSS audit report depends on the type of organization like merchants or service providers, volume of the annual transactions and the payment channels used.

A QSA is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council and can check merchants for PCI DSS compliance. They are certified to do the compliance confirmation in the organizations.

A ISA is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council to audit their sponsoring organizations. They are certified to perform PCI self-assessment for their organizations and suggest security solutions for PCI DSS compliance.

SAQ are validation tools which can be used to help the merchants and the service providers to report the result of self-assessment PCI DSS compliance. There are eight different SAQs available. It is a set of Questionnaire documents which the organizations have to complete every year.

Report on Compliance (ROC) is used to verify if the merchant is compliant with PCI DSS standard. It confirms that the policies are implemented.

What are PCI DSS compliance requirements?

PCI DSS compliance includes security management, policies and procedures, network design, software design and other protective measures. It ensures that an organization meets a minimum security standard required for the customer data security. The sensitive cardholder data should reach the required security.