RandomStorm Stay In The PCI Scanning Elite For Third Year Running

Online, December 8, 2009 (Newswire.com) - PCI is a worldwide security testing standard supported by all the major card issuers including Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Discover. The standard lays down the basic security steps that any business that process card payment transactions, must follow to protect card holder information transmitted and stored across their IT networks.
The system was introduced as a voluntary code of practice in the US in 2004 following a series of high profile cases involving serious credit card fraud. Since then the standard has been strengthened and adopted worldwide, with non-compliant merchants facing serious sanctions and possible six figure penalties if they are responsible for the loss of cardholder data.
RandomStorm has developed a suite of scanning tools used by network managers to routinely monitor their corporate infrastructure for possible vulnerabilities that could be exploited by hackers to gain unauthorised access to customer records. In order to continue to use card payment services, all merchants are required to provide periodic reports, using scanning tools approved by the PCI, to validate that compliance with the data security standard is being maintained.
As one of a select group of UK security consultancies to be awarded Approved Scanning Vendor (ASV) status by the PCI Security Standards Council, RandomStorm is required to pass a rigorous annual accreditation process. To complete the approval process candidate companies are provided with access to the PCI test network set up with a range of vulnerabilities. ASV status is only awarded to companies that can show that they have successfully scanned the network and identified all its problem areas.
"Each year the compliance testing process is becoming harder to complete," commented Andrew Mason, Chief Security Architect at RandomStorm. "Only a handful of companies manage to pass the extensive tests and even fewer manage it at the first attempt. The fact that we have done it for the third year in a row is a credit to the technical team and an endorsement of our world-class technology by independent security specialists."ENDS