Educating Retailers on Secure Payment Best Practices

With the risk and liability associated with online payments and an ever-increasing demand for securing customer information, many retailers find it necessary to play an active role in managing their electronic payment processing. GEOBRIDGE assisted a large national retail chain in bringing part of their electronic payment process in-house. In doing so, it was also necessary to assist this client in training their staff on the business processes associated with protecting transactions and sensitive cardholder data.

GEOBRIDGE prepared a custom training program for key staff, that included application development, network management, security, auditing, finance and retail operations team members. The purpose of the training was to not only teach these individuals about specific functions they would be responsible for performing when payment processing was brought in-house, but to also provide a foundation of knowledge on payment processing and the recommended practices for ensuring that no sensitive data is ever compromised.

The training began with an overview of cryptography, from its origins to current use in today’s electronic marketplace. Participants were advised of the various components that play a part in payment transactions, as well as the roles of various entities involved in payment processing. During the fundamentals portion of the training, key standards, including ANSI specifications, were also reviewed.

Once the core foundations were established, GEOBRIDGE provided detailed practices and audit measures related to managing the hardware and keys used in securing the transactions. The roles of key custodians were detailed and in-depth policies related to key management were covered.

The information was summarized for the participants, and a supplemental document detailing the principles of the training, including a pre-audit checklist, were provided to the staff. Each participant had the opportunity to use this information in a hands-on walkthrough of generating key components.

Upon completion, the client was well positioned to manage their transactions as well as set appropriate procedures in place to ensure compliance with both internal and external audit criteria.

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