• Payments

Validate every aspect of the payment ecosystem.

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Confidently navigate compliance with the standards established by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) for storing, processing, and transmitting cardholder data.

Improve security, not just compliance

Whether PCI compliance is an obligation or fundamental to your broader business objectives, we offer a broad portfolio of payment services, leveraging a risk-based approach to assessing your cardholder data environment, to improve compliance and security outcomes.

Payment services for PCI DSS compliance

Assessment

  • Level 1 assessment: Applying our efficient methodology leveraging Compliance Essentials, we deliver a full Report on Compliance (ROC), while minimizing disruption and setting your organization up for long-term compliance success.
  • Facilitated self-assessment: Level 2, 3, and 4 merchants and Level 2 service providers can quickly, easily, and safely complete a self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) with guidance from one of our Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs).
  • Penetration testing: Our comprehensive services help achieve compliance with PCI DSS requirement.
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Advisory

  • Scope definition and strategy development: To help establish a more proficient compliance program, we define and develop a scope that minimizes delays and cost overruns and eliminates blind spots in your environment and processes.
  • PCI DSS 4.0 and cloud workshops: Our experts provide guidance and recommendations to help you master new technologies and PCI framework developments.
  • PCI risk analyses: Our targeted risk analyses enable you to better manage risk.
  • Readiness, remediation, and program support: With targeted guidance and ongoing engagement, you can move activities from “in progress” to “complete.”
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PCI Reports on Compliance (ROCs)

ROCs help confirm that cardholder data is protected and assure cardholders that they can safely use their credit cards. When you partner with us for a ROC, you will get:

  • An experienced assessor who understands your business’s security goals and has practical knowledge of the payment solutions and technologies you use
  • A thorough depiction of your cardholder data environment and its risks
  • An accurate assessment of where you stand against the requirements
  • Independent recommendations to help close identified gaps
  • Evidence that proves your controls are established and effective
 

PCI in the cloud

In addition to our core payment assessment services, we provide advisory services tailored to meet your unique situation, such as migrating to the cloud while maintaining PCI compliance, developing a PCI responsibility matrix (cloud providers), and conducting a gap analysis with remediation recommendations for recent cloud migrations.

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PCI validation and other payment compliance services

By seamlessly integrating cutting-edge SaaS technology with our expert guidance, Compliance Essentials gives you continual visibility and control over your entire compliance program.

P2PE

Our extensive P2PE services can address your strategic and tactical needs:

  • Advisory: Collaborate with experts to make informed strategic business decisions. Plan for P2PE validation (solution providers) or investment in a P2PE solution (merchants).
  • Preparation: Get to market faster – and facilitate ongoing compliance efforts – with gap and remediation services, documentation reviews, and instruction manual preparation.
  • Assessments: Benefit from our experience designing and assessing some of the industry’s largest, most complex solutions, as we identify and execute the best path to market through P2PE and a non-listed encryption solution assessment (NESA).
  • Value-added consulting: Overcome challenges along your P2PE journey with our architecture design, scalability and ROI analysis, integration strategy, workshops, and go-to-market validation white papers.
Secure Software (SSF)

Validating an application to Secure Software Framework (SSF) enables you to demonstrate to acquiring banks, payment processors, card brands, and merchants that you take application security seriously. We can help you streamline the assessment process by integrating your security and compliance needs into the early stages of your payment application development lifecycle.

PCI Forensics

As soon as you suspect your network has been breached, you should contact a PCI Forensic Investigator (PFI). As one of only five PFIs that cover the U.S. and Europe, we will help you determine whether cardholder data has been compromised and when and how it may have occurred.

For U.S. investigations, contact us at 877-909-0703. For UK investigations, contact us at (+44) 0800 260 6435. Or email PFI@coalfire.com for immediate assistance.

Get the PCI Forensic datasheet

PCI Qualified PIN Assessor (QPA) program

We are a qualified, principal company in providing PIN security assessments. Second only to protecting sensitive credit card account information, safeguarding the cardholder’s personal identification number (PIN) is one of the most important tasks for prevention of card-present fraud in retail and banking. With the continued movement toward chip-and-PIN EMV (the technology standard named for Europay, Mastercard, and Visa), it is even more crucial that entities handling PINs protect this information properly in the face of continually evolving threats.

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"When it comes to PCI compliance, experience and knowledge matter

I’m impressed by the breadth of knowledge that Coalfire assessors have shown regarding PCI DSS requirements and how they apply to our environment. The assessors know the requirements in detail and can readily speak to how implementation of particular processes and methodologies in our cloud-based environment satisfy those requirements."

CIO at Qualpay

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What can you expect from our payment services?

Compliance Essentials

By coordinating assessments across more than 50 compliance frameworks, you can eliminate duplicate activities and maintain a state of continuous compliance with Compliance Essentials.

Cost and operational effeciences

Through our experience conducting thousands of PCI assessments and hundreds of cloud assessments, we know how to simplify the assessment process.

Deep expertise

Fortune 500 companies, including the largest cloud service providers, rely on our deep understanding of cloud technologies for help navigating their cybersecurity needs and meeting compliance requirements.

Faster time to market

You’ll have access to the industry’s largest team of QSAs, comprising all PCI specialist designations, and a team of PFIs.

Reduced risk

As one of the original PCI QSAs, we’re uniquely qualified to understand environments that may have undergone a credit card breach and help you get back to business after an event.

Respected industry leaders

As an inaugural member of the PCI Global Executive Assessor Roundtable, we work closely with the PCI Security Standards Council and card brands to develop and support improvements to industry standards.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Payment Card Industry?

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) is a self-regulatory program that was established by the major credit card brands to provide standards for credit card security, assess industry participants to those standards, and monitor compliance. There are multiple programs that address specific areas of payment security – all are administered by the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC).

Is PCI applicable to my business?

If your business stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data, then you are expected to be PCI compliant. Merchants who take credit card payments should work with their acquiring banks to establish the required assessment expectations. Service providers need to be aware of their customers’ expectations for PCI compliance support.

Is PCI compliance challenging?

There are two unique aspects of PCI compliance, as compared with more common frameworks. First, scope is driven by cardholder data, which can be tokenized. Reducing scope is the number one goal, as it limits risk and total cost. Second, some newer technologies have been more challenging to understand in a PCI context, including cloud computing.

What are some recent developments in the PCI world?

A new version of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was released in March 2022. Version 4.0 is a modernization of the standard that was first conceived more than 30 years ago. New options for risk management and enhanced expectations for all assessed entities include governance and vulnerability management.

How can Coalfire help with PCI compliance?

Coalfire offers comprehensive services for support throughout the PCI lifecycle. Our portfolio of solutions includes advisory support for product or service development, compliance program support, DSS 4.0 preparation, scope definition advisory, and assessments. The latter can be supported with a self-assessment or a full Report on Compliance (ROC).

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