In the U.S. e-commerce industry, convenience seems to be the antithesis of security. Merchants’ stagnant adoption to 3D secure, at least from what Instabill merchant account managers have seen, is proof of such.
In the age of the data breach, however, that school of thought can result in the loss of a business. 3D secure is no longer the sale-blocking hindrance merchants deemed it years ago, and should be considered as a fraud deterrent. The U.S. is headed in the right direction with the migration of EMV credit cards, but they were made for offline and POS shopping.
As fraudsters are already wreaking havoc on U.S. e-commerce businesses, merchants, both POS and e-commerce, need to start thinking about P2P encryption and tokenization. The two security measures were spoken of repeatedly in the seminar entitled, ‘Cyber Security of the Future: How to Stay One Step Ahead of the Hackers,’ Apr. 20 at the Transact 16 conference and tradeshow in Las Vegas.
The panelists of the seminar repeatedly used a telling expression: That merchants need to shrink the ‘attack surface’ of cardholder information. That’s what P2P encryption and tokenization do.
What is P2P Encryption and tokenization?
P2P encryption is a payment security measure that instantly converts consumer credit card details of a transaction into a one-time code, useless to hackers, by the point of sale device in use. Other than its security benefits, P2P encryption expedites the transaction process and is a vital component of PCI DSS compliance.
For merchants that maintain consumer credit card information, such as subscription and recurring billing merchants, then tokenization is a necessity. Tokenization disguises credit, debit and ACH information by replacing the data with a string of characters unrecognizable to hackers, rendering the information useless.
“We can solve (credit card data theft) with two very simple, available things: P2P encryption and tokenization,” said panelist Phil Kumnick of Visa. “But it needs to part of a bundle.”
PCI Compliance Solutions with Instabill
As cyber theft will escalate for the foreseeable future, Instabill cannot emphasize the need for PCI DSS compliance more – and we have the solution.
Through a partnership with McAfee and Intel Security, Instabill’s merchant partners can learn everything necessary from start to finish about the PCI certification process. Our merchant account managers are always on hand for consultation by clicking the live chat option below, or calling us direct at 1-800-318-2713.
