In the online transactions world, there are two things that are almost as immutable as death and taxes are in our personal lives. It really is all about the money, and the corollary that “security matters.” The latter is particularly relevant these days given all of the revelations about security breaches and the misuse/abuse of customer proprietary information.
Safeguarding financial and associated personal information for non-cash payments has long been a concern of the financial industry. In fact many years ago, they created the Security Standards Council which developed the Payment Card Industry (PCI (News - Alert)) DSS standard to assure card users of all types—debit, credit, prepaid, e-purse, ATM and POS card transactions— would have their information handled safely and securely by trusted parties. As a result and in line with the old saying, “trust but verify,” getting a seal of approval of compliance with the PCI DSS is consequential.
For this reason, it is noteworthy that Indianapolis, IN-based Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) has obtained validation that its cloud-based communications-as-a-service (CaaS) offering has successfully met PCI DSS 2.0 for Level 1 compliance.
Independent PCI-Qualified Security Assessor, Intersec Worldwide, conducted an assessment of the Interactive Intelligence Communications as a Service? dedicated cardholder data environment and found it to be compliant with PCI DSS version 2.0 Security Standards.
"Validation of the Interactive Intelligence CaaS environment's compliance with PCI DSS ensures that a company's payment network meets industry best practices and security controls that card brands have established to keep customer credit card data safe and secure for digital-based processing, storage and transmission," said Intersec Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Tutton. "Interactive Intelligence cloud customers get the additional reassurance of Level 1 validation, which is the highest level offered and means that an independent PCI QSA has reviewed and officially signed off on the compliance status."
Intersec reported that the Interactive Intelligence CaaS PCI-compliant cloud environment offers the following security measures as part of its validation:
- Multi-layer protection and data access limitations.
- Services that monitor, defend against, and mitigate cyber assaults and threats.
- Features that include antivirus management, vulnerability scanning, a secure audit trail, and resource tracking.
- Round-the-clock technical support by comprehensively trained staff to maximize uptime and availability, and enhance security.
It should be further noted that Interactive Intelligence offers additional industry certification at the corporate (SOX, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, JITC), cloud services (SSAE-16 SOC2, customer data isolation, proactive monitoring), and data center levels. They also provide an option that enables CaaS customers to keep all of their data within their firewall, and provide their cloud customers a network operations center that provides 24x7 CaaS support and services.
"With nearly two decades of experience working with contact centers that are regularly tasked with collecting sensitive customer data, we're no stranger to strict security standards," said Interactive Intelligence Vice President of CaaS Mike Szilagyi. "We've maintained our security commitment to these customers with our Interactive Intelligence CaaS offering by investing in the highest industry certifications at every level so that they're guaranteed the safest, most trusted cloud solution on the market."
Security has been an issue for cloud adoption for many years. Despite the proof cases that demonstrate that in many ways cloud-based communications are more secure than legacy premises-centric ones, skepticism still remains. In fact, compliance with recognized standards and mandates has been a huge hurdle for many on the vendor as well as the enterprise IT side of things. This is why validation of compliance is a big deal. Online commerce cannot exist without trust, and having that trust authenticated provides something that many consider invaluable, i.e., peace of mind for all involved.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi