Business Services: Making POS Safety a Priority

A recent national news story really drove home the important message that no company is secure from hackers and identification thieves, and that all firms have to make point-of-sale (POS) safety a premier priority. Thankfully, you can find merchant services rates available to have the work done.From 2008 to 2011, Romanian hackers presumably perpetrated a multimillion-dollar cybercrime against hundreds of small retailers - including more than 150 Subway restaurant franchises - that racked up more than $3 million in fraudulent charges. According to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court in New Hampshire, the crooks victimized over 80,000 folks from POS methods by coughing into checkout terminals and implanting spyware on the devices that helped them to capture the consumers' private and account information. After dumping the information on a number of different sites, it was transferred by them to other sites where they may discuss it with computers they controlled. The identification intruders used a number of the data to create fraudulent charge cards to make unauthorized fees. The remainder of the stolen information was offered to other thieves in cyberspace.The four defendants - three of whom are in custody - have already been charged with numerous matters of fraud, and they each experience dozens of years in prison if they are charged and optimum sentences are imposed.According to the Federal Trade Commission, the details of as many as 9 million Americans are stolen each year. Two of the most common ways that identity robbers have the information are by illegally gaining usage of and tampering with information in a computer system (hacking) and by robbing credit or debit card figures using a storage device when handling a (skimming). Suppliers who take credit cards need to be conscious of both strategies and be vigilant against them.One way to do this is to make certain their credit card processing methods are PCI compliant; that is, that they stick to strict specifications issued by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. Reliable merchant services providers usually give a PCI compliance program to their member suppliers, and some give you a security program that helps address charges as a result of an information breach.Investigators in the Subway hacking established that while the parent company had provided the necessary security needs, some of the franchisees overlooked the expectations and left themselves wide open to the identity thieves. "These people weren't thinking about place of purchase security - they were just thinking about making a sandwich," stated one audit and compliance manager for an security firm.Protecting all computers from hackers is essential, but protecting a POS system is a must to your company and your visitors ' survival as well. PCI submission should be a main target of all retailers, regardless of size of their function. because they believe they're less inclined to be security conscious as this coughing event underscores, identification robbers frequently target small enterprises. Put simply, the smaller the business, the bigger the target.The most useful advice for suppliers would be to make certain your bank card processing system is PCI secure and certified by talking to your merchant services company and following their advice. Safe charge card processing may be the duty of most parties involved.