Halloween is just around the corner, which means that costumes, haunted houses, and scary movies will soon be making appearances. But you know what’s even scarier than Halloween? Security breaches that put your business and customers at risk. 

Not only do breaches cost businesses a lot of dedicated resources and time dealing with the compromised data, but they also decrease customer trust and loyalty. If that’s not chilling enough, it is found that the average cost of a data breach in the U.S. is $8.64 million. 

To decrease the risk of loss, merchants must implement a foolproof way to make payments as secure as possible. They need to be confident that they will not compromise security when collecting customer data. This Halloween, businesses can improve their payments processes with a few security measures to ensure there are no tricks that put them at risk.

Avoid Scary Security Scenarios With Encryption

Encryption is a critical component that is used to reduce the likelihood of payments information being stolen. This “must-have” technology in the payments industry secures business infrastructure by converting information into an unintelligible form.

While there are many ways this can be enabled, there are two common methodologies that merchants implement. First, Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) is where the card entry device encrypts cardholder data and the payment host decrypts it. With P2PE, the PAN (Primary Account Number) and SAD (Sensitive Authentication Data) are encrypted by utilizing a single-owned key from the Point of Interaction (POI) to the first processing host or gateway. 

End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) is when the parties hand off the decryption task to the processor. The PAN and SAD are encrypted at the point of interaction with the payment instrument. This information stays encrypted with a single processor-owned key from the POI to the merchant acquirer or back-end processor.  

Terrify Hackers With Tokenization 

As an additional step to encryption, customers’ personal information can be disguised using tokenization. This is the process of switching out cardholder data (specifically, the card’s PAN) with randomized data that has no intrinsic value as a payment method outside the confines of a retailer’s lightly controlled environment. Retailers can use this security method to replace their consumers’ credit card data with a unique identifier that can be used repeatedly.

Businesses must also consider that they manage several systems at a time, including both eCommerce and in-store POS. Each of these systems must be secure so that customers can pay both in-store and online to create a true omnichannel experience. That’s why it’s important that payments processors across every channel share the same tokenization format so that customers don’t need to enter their cardholder information each time they buy something. 

Eliminate Payments Security Nightmares With OLS Payments 

We understand that security breaches can be quite frightening. With expanding payments roadmaps and an increase in payment system complexity, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to figure out which products and services to deploy that will insulate your system from the risk of data theft. 

That’s why we’re here to keep the nightmares away and give you peace of mind about your payments security. OLS fully complies with the latest PCI and PA-DSS requirements, allowing merchants to reduce their PCI scope and protect their payment systems quickly and easily. Our powerful and flexible technology protects and removes cardholder data from your systems. This will not only enhance the security of your data, but it will also significantly reduce the overhead of your annual PCI assessment requirements.   Check out this page here to learn more about how we can help you quickly and easily reduce your PCI scope and protect your payment systems from any Halloween horrors.