Erik from PCICompliance.com 
How to Verify Vendor PCI: A Clear Guide for Small Business Owners If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and your first reaction was “What is this?”, you’re in the right place. Here’s the bottom line: PCI compliance sounds scarier than it usually is for small businesses. Most merchants can … Read more
How to Document PCI Compliance Getting Started: Your PCI Compliance Roadmap That compliance questionnaire from your payment processor looks intimidating, but here’s the truth: how to document PCI compliance is much simpler than you think for most small businesses. If you’re reading this because you just received a confusing email about “maintaining PCI DSS compliance” … Read more
How to Choose an ASV Bottom Line Up Front If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and you’re wondering what an ASV is (and whether you need one), here’s what matters: an ASV is an Approved Scanning Vendor that runs quarterly security scans on your network. If you accept credit … Read more
What Is Sensitive Auth Data? Bottom Line Up Front If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and you’re feeling overwhelmed, here’s the good news: for most small businesses, PCI compliance is actually simpler than it sounds. Sensitive authentication data (SAD) is one of those scary-sounding terms that’s actually straightforward — … Read more
Bottom Line Up Front If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a breath. For most small businesses, achieving PCI compliance is simpler than you think — often just a matter of answering a short questionnaire about how you accept payments and running a quarterly security … Read more
What Is a Compensating Control? Bottom Line Up Front If you’re reading this because your payment processor just asked about compensating controls in your PCI compliance questionnaire, here’s the good news: most small businesses don’t need compensating controls at all. These are basically workarounds for when you can’t meet a specific PCI requirement exactly as … Read more
What Is PAN Truncation? A Complete Guide for Small Business Owners Bottom Line Up Front If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and you’re wondering what PAN truncation means, here’s the simple answer: it’s a way to display only part of a credit card number (like XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-1234) to keep the … Read more
What Is Network Segmentation? Bottom Line Up Front If you just received a PCI compliance questionnaire from your payment processor and saw something about “network segmentation,” don’t panic. Here’s the truth: network segmentation is simply keeping your credit card processing systems separate from everything else on your network — like having a locked cash register … Read more
Outdated POS Terminal PCI Compliance: What Your Business Needs to Know Your Old Card Terminal and PCI Compliance That credit card terminal sitting on your counter might be putting your business at risk — not just from security threats, but from compliance fines and lost ability to process payments. If you’ve received a confusing questionnaire … Read more
CDN Impact on PCI Compliance: What Your Small Business Needs to Know Relax. If you just opened an email from your payment processor about PCI compliance and your first thought was “What on earth is this?”, you’re not alone. Here’s the truth: for most small businesses, PCI compliance is much simpler than it sounds. You … Read more