A guide for merchants: Everything you have to know about Payment Security

With growing numbers of eCommerce and m-commerce transactions, there are new opportunities for cyber criminals. As a merchant, you need to ensure that you provide the best payment security and that your customers don’t have to worry about their data. Are you sure payments on your website are processed in a secure way?

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It’s your responsibility to have the purchasing process under control and reduce the risk of fraud at every step of checkout. Data thieves’ knowledge of how new technologies work is impressive. For that reason reducing the vulnerable points of payment processing is a crucial part of every eCommerce business. You need to know the payment security solutions.

SSL protocol

The first thing you need to do for your payment security is ensuring that your website is secure. Are you using SSL protocol to encrypt information on your site?

SSL certificates show your website is protected and will grow your online reputation as well. All information, such as credit card details and other sensitive data is protected. It also improves brand awareness and builds credibility with customers. The SSL is symbolized by a padlock icon in the URL bar and the web address begins with https. The SSL comes with many benefits for your online business, so make sure you’re using it to protect your customers well.

PCI Compliance

You’ve probably heard about PCI Compliance if you process payments on your website or looked into implementing online payments in the future. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) tell merchants how sensitive data used in payments should be secured. It requires data encryption to provide payments without using real card data that’s visible while processing. Note that PCI guidelines also consider tokenization in the future version.

Also see: Why PCI matters?

Doing business should be based on trust and PCI compliance helps improve security. You need to do everything to decrease the risk of payment and data fraud that could damage your brand’s reputation.

Tokenization

Tokenization is the technology that makes it easier to improve payment security and provide a payment process without vulnerabilities. Tokenization makes customer authentication during the purchase possible without affecting the transaction’s security.

In short, a token is a random string of characters that replaces sensitive information, such as a 16-digit credit card number. The payment process involves sensitive data, so merchants need to understand where the vulnerabilities exist. With tokenization, the chances of a data breach are reduced. Even if a token number is stolen, it would be meaningless to the fraudsters.

3D Secure

Moreover, considering a payment solution with 3D Secure helps prevent fraud in online credit and debit card transactions. It gives extra protection to transactions and comes with many benefits. 3D Secure creates a secure password for the shopper’s credit card. Every transaction is then verified with the password, which adds an additional layer of security. It can decrease the number of fraudulent transactions and boost your revenue.

Address Verification Service

You can also use an Address Verification Service, which requires customers to provide the billing address associated with their credit card. When the address on the card matches with the one in bank’s documents, the transaction will go through.

Many companies have a problem determining the location and storage of their payment data, but 42% of companies claim that payment data is at the greatest risk when it is stored. A Global Study on the State of Payment Data Security shows that over 50% of organizations had a breach involving payment data within the past two years.

Merchants need to know that the number of vulnerabilities they face is constantly growing and they have to be prepared for fraudulent activities at any time. Make sure that you comply with the payment, security, and risk standards of the countries you operate in.

Read the full guide to see how to prevent fraud, how to minimize the payment risk and how to limit financial losses.

Get the guide here.

Originally published at securionpay.com.