Although this blog article scared me a little, it has good information and insight into protecting yourself.
Pam
Three Advantages of Cloud Payments
By: Anuj Shah, Nodus Technologies, Inc.
According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), as of July 12th there have been 478 confirmed data breaches in 2015, with more than 139 million records exposed. The business sector tops the list with the highest percentage of breach attacks, followed closely by the medical/healthcare sector. With government officials labeling cybercrime as the most prominent threat to national security, business leaders and technologists across the nation are inventing new ways to protect sensitive data and thwart cyber criminals. At the same time, consumers are growing increasingly conscious of where and how they make purchases, and with credit cards becoming the leading form of payment, protecting card holder data has never been of more significance.
Reflecting on media reports detailing recent data breaches, it is clear hackers are going after businesses which process and store their customers’ credit card information within their own environment. These breaches present strong incentives for hackers to gain unauthorized access to corporate servers and databases, with many incidents confirming the use of malicious malware and point of sale attacks, resulting in tens of millions of stolen credit card details (and immeasurable damage to brands and corporate reputations). This data is then turned and sold on the black market across the globe, with many notoriously operated websites openly promoting the sale of stolen credit card details.
Although nothing can be done to completely guarantee the security of card holder data, basic economics suggests that in order to make a dent in the problem, we must try to reduce the incentive and associated reward received by cyber criminals when they hack into company servers and steal sensitive payment information. By utilizing solutions that combine tokenization and cloud technology with payment processing, savvy merchants can eliminate the entry, transmission and storage of sensitive credit card details from their own local environment, and simultaneously divert hackers from accessing anything of value in the unfortunate event of a data breach.
While the benefit of eliminating sensitive data from local environments is in of itself solid justification for merchants to explore cloud payment technology, it is not the only operational advantage. Cloud payment engines can also empower hyper-simplified integration and sharing of payment data across multiple platforms and payment applications (conventionally, a rather intricate and costly development process). This is key for businesses that need to integrate payment data from different channels to a single ERP or CRM. With cloud payment technology, this process becomes less complex and more centralized, since a single remote cloud-based platform can serve as the hub for processing, storing and managing payment data from an unlimited number of sources.
In addition to better security, and easier integration and sharing across platforms and applications, cloud payment engines can also help businesses achieve more freedom and flexibility with regards to payment gateways.
Traditionally, merchants have been tied to one gateway for all their payment processing and service needs. This is due to the high costs and complexities often associated with changing payment gateways; however, with cloud payment engines, merchants can take advantage of universal tokens that work multiple gateways, resulting in the enhanced ability to rapidly switch gateways at any time, with minimal friction to existing systems and infrastructure. The result is a more competitive environment for credit card processing rates and service – since merchants can quickly shift to the provider that offers the best features, service or rates for a given transaction.
For additional insight on the benefits of tokenization and cloud payments contact Nodus Technologies at (909) 482-4701 or by email at sales@nodus.com.