PCI DSS Managed Service

Get a tailored quote for our PCI DSS implementation and continual improvement service

As a certified QSA company, IT Governance can help you achieve and maintain PCI DSS compliance cost-effectively and within a timeframe that suits your business requirements. We have a team of account managers and Qualified Security Assessors to discuss your PCI DSS challenges. For more information, please contact us.

What is the PCI DSS managed service?

Our PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) managed service, delivered by a team of qualified PCI DSS security consultants, provides an end-to-end service to meet all your PCI requirements under one contract.

We can provide advice, reduce the complexity of your project and lead your organisation’s journey to compliance. We can also help build measures into everyday business processes to ensure continual compliance with the Standard and ease the burden of annual QSA (Qualified Security Assessor) audits.

Under a single contract, IT Governance can:

  • Provide a detailed review of your organisation’s cardholder data flows to reduce your scope and outline the most cost-effective approach to compliance;
  • Manage or help your team’s PCI DSS remediation efforts, delivering a plan to reach full compliance;
  • Assess your data security by applying real-world security testing of the controls you believe are in place and functioning effectively;
  • Provide a thorough assessment of the controls you have implemented, establishing whether they meet the requirements of the Standard; and
  • In the event of a data breach, provide guidance through investigation and remediation.

Why is compliance important?

  • Avoid penalties: Fines for non-compliance can reach £75,000 a month, and organisations that are breached can have their credit card privileges revoked. 
  • Reduced risk of data breaches: The 2018 Trustwave Global Security Report found that 40% of all breaches targeted payment data in commercial environments. According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2018 Cost of Data Breach study, a data breach costs £115 per record lost. A data breach is now estimated to cost an organisation £3.01 million on average. 
  • Quicker response to new or other requirements: The PCI DSS aims to protect critical and sensitive data, providing an excellent starting point for compliance with other data protection requirements or legislation such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The PCI DSS provides a good degree of “future-proofing” for implementers, and therefore helps provide good ROI over the lifetime of the organisation. 
  • Operational efficiencies: More tightly integrated and streamlined security processes improve systems’ operational integrity, providing further cost savings for both administration resources and end-user business processes.

Is the PCI DSS managed service right for you?

  • You require an annual QSA-driven pre-audit and/or audit to draw up a comprehensive RoC (Report on Compliance). 
  • You want an end-to-end PCI compliance service that offers a cost-effective route to compliance.
  • You want practical advice on areas where payment card data can be removed from your payment and business processes.
  • You need inexpensive and flexible compliance solutions that can help your organisation regardless of its size and budget.
  • The implementation of your PCI project requires ongoing consultancy and support throughout the process.
  • You want to create new services allowing you to offer payment processing and payment gateway services to a wider customer base.

Benefits of the PCI DSS managed service

Our multi-year contracts lock in prices, eliminating the uncertainty of price increases while helping you optimise your investment in PCI implementation.

  • Return on investment: Save on your implementation costs by engaging in the full range of PCI consultancy services, from scope reduction to gap analysis and remediation to the final audit.
  • Save time, effort and resources: Save time in negotiations and yearly preparation for the audit with a single contract.
  • Safeguard against price volatility: Protect your annual PCI auditing and RoC service against any price fluctuations.
  • Strategic partnerships: We can help you achieve an improved ongoing state of operations that will enable your organisation to better maintain compliance with the Standard.
  • Continual improvement initiatives: Receive insight into changing environments and discover emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

Our engagement process

As part of the initial onboarding process, our consultants will conduct a review to establish priorities and requirements for discussion and agreement with you. On completion of the onboarding process, the scope and objectives of the PCI DSS managed service will be documented with an agreed effort. A typical engagement will involve:

  • Scope reduction: Determine key areas where payment card data can be removed from your payment and business processes, and suggest appropriate solutions to help reduce the number of systems that are in scope.
  • Gap analysis: Understand your compliance status, providing a detailed comparison of what your organisation is currently doing against what it should be doing to comply with the PCI DSS.
  • Continual improvement: Develop a comprehensive plan for fixing vulnerabilities and eliminating the storage of cardholder data unless necessary to fully comply with the relevant PCI DSS requirements.
  • Regular testing: Conduct penetration tests to help provide a crucial end-of-state check and that can be used in the early stages of developing new processing systems to identify risks to cardholder data.
  • Training courses: To enable you to understand what a PCI DSS-compliant programme is and how to implement one in your organisation.
  • Policy creation: Document the processes and procedures your organisation has put in place that support the security of cardholder data.
  • Annual audit: One of our QSAs will conduct the external audit and submit a RoC to your acquiring bank to prove compliance each year.

Find out more about our PCI DSS managed service >>

How IT Governance can help you

Our services provide a tailored route to PCI compliance, scalable to your budget and need.

We go further than a simple ‘yes/ no’ approach to understand better how security measures work.

We work in partnership to help you understand what is required and why giving you control.

We can offer expertise to vet compensating controls and determine whether they are acceptable.

Companies using our PCI DSS products and services:

"IT Governance were very professional and pragmatic in their approach, and displayed a level of understanding of our business that we found unique and refreshing.” 

Damien Everard, COO of Appletree.

PROTECT YOUR
BUSINESS
THIS WINTER