PCI Compliance.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) applies to all entities that store, process, and transmit credit card payments. It was launched in 2007 by the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC). The motive of this standard is to ensure that all forms of payment card transactions made in the network infrastructure are secure.

Consequences of PCI non-compliance.

Non-compliance to PCI standards can lead to any or all of the following consequences:

  • Fines of $5,000 to $100,000 for each month of non-compliance.
  • Losing customers' trust.
  • Damage to reputation.

Since the cost of ensuring compliance can be high, organizations sometimes fail to comply with such standards. However, non-compliance only ends up costing organizations more, given the damage data breaches can cause and the fines mentioned above.

PCI compliance requirements.

Twelve requirements must be fulfilled in order to achieve complete PCI DSS compliance. The following are the requirements organizations need to satisfy on the network level:

Security and data protection: The network admin must ensure that the default credentials provided by device vendors are not retained. Also, transmission of cardholder data across open and public networks must be encrypted.

Access Control: Unique IDs and passwords must be assigned to every user in the network. Implementation of user roles is also necessary to restrict user access to network resources.

Regular monitoring and testing the networks: All access to network resources and cardholder data must be tracked and monitored. The security systems and processes must also be tested regularly.

How to ensure PCI compliance with Network Configuration Manager.

Network Configuration Manager helps you achieve PCI compliance by addressing some critical requirements, which you can learn more about below:

Startup-running configuration sync:

Network Configuration Manager displays the configuration sync status of all devices in your inventory. This will help you identify the devices that have a startup-running configuration conflict.

Clicking on the sync status of the devices that have a conflict will take you to the Diff View. The Diff View shows you a side-by-side comparison of the startup and running configuration files. Since Network Configuration Manager allows you to backup configuration files, you can also choose to compare the current configuration with any version in the repository of backups. The conflict can be remediated by syncing configurations directly from the inventory. You can do it manually or schedule it to happen once or at regular intervals.

Tracking devices with default password:
Network Configuration Manager tracks down all the network devices that use vendor-supplied default passwords. This helps you safeguard your network from cyberthreats and replace default passwords with strong and unique passwords.

Identifying security vulnerabilities and patching:
Security audit reports in Network Configuration Manager help you identify all the security vulnerabilities in devices. This report lists all the vulnerabilities in the network devices in your environment as well as the description of the issue, its impact, how easy it would be to exploit, and recommendations to resolve it. In addition, you can also roll out patches to address security violations.

Role-based access control (RBAC):
RBAC allows you to restrict users' access to network resources. The role assigned to each user is based on what information they need access to. Users will also be restricted from making changes to the network directly. Any change attempted will require the approval of the admin; this will prevent the network from facing any mishaps due to an unauthorized change made to the network.

How to fix PCI compliance violations with Network Configuration Manager.

Manually fixing PCI compliance violations is difficult and time-consuming. It requires the admin to log in to individual devices and make changes to the configurations using a series of commands.

This process can be simplified using Network Configuration Manager. Admins can write down the commands as remediation configlets and associate them with their corresponding rules. Whenever there's a violation, all you have to do is execute the rule's remediation configlet to fix it immediately. This helps close loopholes and safeguard all sensitive credit card information.

To get started using Network Configuration Manager, try a free, 30-day trial.