More than once we’ve talked about PCI compliance standards and PCI guidelines. Basically, PCI standards are one and the same with PCI compliance and PCI guidelines. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council has set forth a list of criteria were “standards” to which business owners must adhere in order to continue with e-commerce.

Why has the PCI Council set forth a series of PCI standards? The answer is pretty clear cut — because identity theft has become one of the most rapidly growing and problematic issues to date. In fact, identity theft is a problem crime that’s growing at astronomical rates worldwide. As such, the development of PCI standards seeks only to protect businesses and consumers from would be ID thieves.

PCI standards vary from merchant to merchant based on specific merchant levels. These merchant levels are derived from a series of criteria that were compiled by the PCI Council. Depending upon which merchant level your business carries, you’re PCI standards may vary from that of a different merchant. However, if you plan to continue in e-commerce or you have aspirations of accepting credit card or debit card payments through your website, you will be required to know and adhere to your specific PCI standards.

Today, there is a wide variety of tools designed to help businesses comply to PCI standards. PCI scanners and PCI vulnerability tools are relatively easy to find and can end up saving merchants lots of money and heartache in the long run. In as much as PCI scanning can protect merchants from these scams, it can also protect and save you and your consumers a substantial amount of time and money over the long haul as well.

Statistics indicate that victims of identity theft spend around 600 hours trying to correct all of the problems caused by the crime. This is an increase of over 2000% in the last three years. With technology becoming more advanced, crime is becoming more advanced as well. As such, in order to stay ahead of the thieves, the PCI standards set forth by the PCI Council are becoming mandatory.

It’s also notable that the utilization of tools to help businesses adhere to the PCI standards set forth by the PCI Council is also an excellent marketing tool. In fact, many consumers agree that if a company can provide them constant and consistent safe and secure transactions, they will very likely become repeat customers. It stands to reason that protecting your customers is an act of good faith and also helps to instill confidence in the consumer that you are a reputable business owner, who cares about the client’s needs.

It is possible to learn more about PCI standards and what it takes to be PCI compliant. You will find that, especially as a merchant, questions are readily answered in order to help you best serve yourself and your customers. It’s also important to note that even if you are a sole proprietor, any transaction made over the Internet must adhere to PCI standards.

PCI stands for payment card industry. As such, there isn’t much call for the average citizen to gain a PCI education. However, if you own your own company or you’re operating an e-commerce website, PCI scanning could be very important to you. In fact, many online business owners are told that they need PCI scanning in order to operate successfully. Unfortunately, far too often, business owners are told they need PCI scanning that are never given a clear indication as to what PCI scanning actually does. If you’re interested in learning more about PCI scanning and what it can mean to you and your online business, read on for a little education.

First of all, the acronym PCI (as aforementioned, payment card industry) often refers to the PCI Council. The PCI Council is more formally called the PCI Security Standards Council. This council originated after having been founded by the five most major credit card companies. These five companies include MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, and finally JCB. The goal of the organization is to maintain a uniform and universal set of security standards that must be followed by any business that processes a credit card or debit card transaction. If you run an online business — this means you.

In a few to operate legally and process online payments, you must comply with the specification set forth by the PCI Council. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through the use of PCI scanning. PCI scanning is also called vulnerability scanning — the two are one and the same. Basically, PCI scanning is the process by which an approved scanning vendor (PCI ASV) scans and reviews each and every IP address to which the public has access that will have anything to do with your company’s webpage or any transaction that you process there from.

In most cases, the IP address included in a PCI scan is your company website’s IP address. However, it is common practice for many online businesses to transfer customers to a “shopping cart”. This shopping cart can be a third-party. If this is the case for you, you would need to include the IP address for your shopping cart as well.

Running an online company can be stressful enough; this is especially true in times of economic crisis and during times when Internet and electronic crime is at an all-time high. Because of this, PCI scanning is becoming increasingly popular and increasingly more efficient. You will find that a few moments researching PCI scanning online will reveal a world of information you may not have known existed. You will also find the PCI scanning, and any quantity of money paid therefore, is a small price to pay in comparison to the benefits one will reap through the use of such a service.

In short, PCI scanning is required in order for you to be in 100% compliance with the PCI Council’s regulations for online transaction. Aside from that, PCI scanning will allow you to protect yourself and your customers establishing you as a reputable retailer.

If you would like to find out more about PCI Scanning and how it can help secure your business then you should take a look at McAfee Secure, Trust Guard, and Control Scan.

What is Vulnerability Scanning?

Is your company dealing with online transactions and processing of any cardholder data? You need to make sure that you opt for vulnerability scanning and implement the necessary measures to provide yourself and your customers the most intense security provided on your website and servers. There are three different standards mentioned by the PCI council for industries to maintain and this is made mandatory by most payment card processors and acquirers.

The three standards that need to be met include the PCI data security standard, Payment application data security standard and PIN entry device security requirements. The vulnerability scanning that is provided by most ASV’s (Approved Scanning Vendors). These scanning vendors will normally provide you with reports that give you details regarding your vulnerability scan.

There is another step where each card brand (e.g. Visa, MasterCard) can assess you as a merchant by using the SAQ or the self assessment questionnaire. Once you carry out these processes under vulnerability scanning, you need to make sure that you adopt the necessary technology and processes required to maintain the required standards.

The security technology used for vulnerability scanning processes involves the usage software that will scan your servers for any of the 25000 + potential vulnerabilities. The security processes involve the checking of the current activities of the processes that are currently being run on your network.

The PCI data security standards require certain goals to be maintained. These goals include building and maintaining a network that is secure, maintaining a vulnerability management program by making use the scanning programs. There is also a necessity to make sure that the networks involved are tested and under controlled monitoring to avoid any possible hacker attacks. There is a necessity that you restrict any access to the physical data on any card.

It is always much better to have an encrypted standard for transmission of data. This will make sure that the data flow that occurs happens in a secure manner. This reduces the possibility of intercepting the data while it travels over your network.

You need to collect enough information on the facilities provided by vendors who help you in the vulnerability scanning procedure. In every transaction that happens there are three stages that you have to go through called the authorization, clearing and settlement. These different phases provide the vendor with several points where there is a need for security.

You need to conduct scans as frequently as possible to make sure that your customers are safe and secure when shopping with you. There are quarterly and daily scans available from most scanning vendors, it is much better to opt for daily scans as this provides a better system of security where you will be granted all the security measures that are required to keep your system away from all hackers.

If you would like to learn more about Vulnerability Scanning then we suggest you check out a PCI Scanning vendor that will meet the top requirements for the PCI standards.

So I figured Ward Spangenberg could say it just as good as anyone on exactly what PCI Compliance is and how it can help your company. So either read below the transcript of his YouTube video or watch the video below. PCI Compliance is so important that you don’t want to miss this.

“Hi, my name is Ward Spangenberg. I’m a Delivery Director with IOActive, in Seattle, Washington. Today, I’m going to talk about PCI and what it means to Europe and how it’s affecting operations in Europe. The first question you might ask is “What is PCI?” PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. That doesn’t mean much. What we’re really talking about are the Data Security Standards, so PCI DSS.

These are twelve standards requirements that are required by companies that process credit cards. We have three different types of companies that do this. We have Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 merchants.
The merchant is based upon the number of credit card transactions that occur during a year’s span. You have anywhere from anything less than a million cards would be considered a Level 3 merchant. Anything from one million to five million is going to be a Level 2 merchant. Anything beyond five million is going to be a Level 1 merchant.

With Level 1 merchants, those are required to have a third party come in and perform an audit. That’s what I do. I’m the auditor. What happens is I have to understand all twelve of those requirements and sub-points underneath those requirements. We have things like understanding firewalls and the firewall rule sets, to actual compliance regulations. Do you have HR? Are you doing things like background checks on your employees? It’s a comprehensive baseline. This is really important to understand with PCI. It’s not the end-all/be-all of security. It’s the start of a good security program.

Why is this important to you? The big thing is a merchant, a retailer, or anybody who takes credit cards, this is important to you because it allows you to have the baseline, the beginning of a security program. As I said, it’s the requirements. We can talk about the requirements.

Requirement number one is having network diagrams. It’s amazing, today, how many companies don’t know what their networks look like. One of the first requirements is sitting down and documenting, and understanding what your network is all about, understanding what your firewalls are doing, understanding what your rules sets involved in this firewall. Are we protecting credit card data that is coming in and out through our Web applications? Are we segregating databases properly between what’s exposed on the Internet from what’s protected in the background?

You might be asking yourself, “What does this mean if I’m a grocery store or a shoe retailer?” You may not have a Web presence if you’re a grocery store, but you do still process credit cards. You’ve got a couple of hundred stores and you may be processing credit cards. You still have to follow that methodology as to how do you protect those credit cards.

Look at each store as sort of your remote branch. Are you protecting the credit card information locally, at that remote branch, and are you protecting in transit, and “in store” at your corporate headquarters before you do your batch processing?

When we look at PCI, it’s spread. It goes across merchants. If you’re processing credit cards, it’s really recommended that you understand what’s required of it. Now, you may question, “I’m interested in PCI. I think I process credit cards. Do I need to go through the PCI certification process?”

That’s pretty easy. If you’re a Level 1 merchant, then you do. You have to contact a third party. Once a year that third party will send an assessor onsite, or a group of assessors, and they will perform what should be a very exhaustive process. We’ll cover that in a second. They should cover this very exhaustive process and ask questions, and gather evidence, and at the end of that, they will write what’s called a ROC, or Report On Compliance.

The Report On Compliance is then turned in to your credit card processor, your requiring bank. They are the ones that when a credit card is swiped in your store, they’re the ones that give you authorization on that credit card. They are also the ones that move the money into your account after the sale has occurred.
If you are a Level 2, Level 3 or below, you get something kind of fun. It’s call the “Self Assessment Questionnaire”. For those in the SAQ, there are two versions of it. The newest version just came out this year and is sort of the 1.1 version of the Self Assessment Questionnaire.

Because it just came out, companies have the choice of doing compliancy to the 1.0 version or to the 1.1 version. Your first question is “What’s the difference?” The difference is that the 1.1 version is a lot more comprehensive and a lot more reflective of what a Level 1 merchant will go through.

The belief is that as Level 2 merchants grow – the whole idea is to grow our companies. As Level 2 merchants grow, they are going to become Level 1 merchants. The more comprehensive you are about your security the easier it will be, as your corporation grows, to establish yourself as a compliant Level 1 merchant.

Let’s get back to this Level 1 merchant. Once a quarter, they have this auditor come in. The auditor comes in and performs, we hope, a quality, comprehensive assessment of your organization. What does that mean? Again, it’s the twelve requirements with the subsets of those. I believe it’s 256 requirements, total, if you mean everything.

What should happen with an auditor, they should first ask the question, and then once you give them the answer, they should ask for proof. The process could include sitting down with HR and going through with HR and determining whether the process includes background checks on anyone who has access to credit card data. We can sit down with the encryption experts within your company, or your database administrators, and review how credit card information is processed, how it enters into the database, how it is dumped into the batch settlement reports, which are then transmitted to the credit card companies – usually at close of business or midnight, or however the business is transacted to occur.

That’s the comprehensive approach. There are – in the questions I receive when I speak about PCI is “We’ve had what we call check box auditors. Is that good? Is that bad?” It’s all about what risk you’re willing, and your company is willing to except. PCI is really, truthfully a risk mitigation tool. It’s not going to be the end-all/be-all to the security for your organization. It’s also not the stopping point, either. As you’ll see, each year there will be standards and new requirements associated. By having that growth pattern, where at least there is a good baseline to work with, you need to continue to process your security.

That’s some interesting things about your ROC. You’ve passed it. Everybody has signed off. You’re done. What happens? Once a ROC has been submitted and the payment inquirer, your merchant bank, has accepted the ROC as your compliance, some paperwork is exchanged and you get a certificate. You can say, “I’m PCI compliant”. What happens if, after that’s all gone through, someone gets hacked?

The first thing that happens is that you’re told by your merchant bank to contact a forensic investigator. There is a group of certain forensic investigators that are allowed to come in and perform an assessment. The first thing they do is pull that handy-dandy ROC back out and they start looking at it. They look to determine whether compensating controls that were accepted were strong enough, in terms of if the hack was associated to that. These are some important things to think about.

Again, it’s risk mitigation. Are you willing to accept the risk associated with a compensating control? Those are the things. Again, you start off; you have a baseline. You get audited to it and then you work from that. It’s a good place to start. I highly encourage companies that are processing credit cards to try to hold the standards of the PCIDSS 1.1 and to hire an external company to come in and help you determine your compliancy level, and to work with you to achieve those. Eventually, everything will be moving to those levels. The brick and mortar stores will be required to be just as safe as an online company is.
Thank you for your time.”

So there it is all about PCI Compliance and you have learned from the best. Find out more about PCI Compliance with Trust Guard.

The world is changing and hopefully we are changing as well as online business owners. PCI Scanning in the online world is changing and becoming more and more important for any internet business and Trust Guard is here to the rescue. Trust Guard has just announced the launch of its new PCI Scanning services for online merchants around the globe. This new service gives Trust Guard the unique ability to combine the power of PCI Scanning with their industry leading 3rd party security, privacy, and business verification services, further solidifying Trust Guard as one of the leading brands in online trust seals.

Now if you don’t know what PCI Scanning is then I suggest you read this great article by Trust Guard CEO Scott Brandley called PCI Scanning Simplified and Explained.

“What is the difference between Trust Guard and McAfee Secure (formerly Hacker Safe)?”

As far as PCI Scanning goes, both companies comply with PCI security standards to perform all vulnerability scans, and both companies generate Executive Reports with Approved Scanning Vendor numbers, which is necessary in order for the scans to be properly accepted by your bank (or acquirer). However, that’s where the similarities end and where Trust Guard really pulls ahead from the competition.

Trust Guard PCI Scanning is unique to all other scanning services on the market, including McAfee Secure, because we combine world class PCI Scanning with our leading 3rd party website verification services to provide the ultimate security, privacy and business verification seals online. Trust Guard’s services are very affordable for small business owners, while providing more credibility and value than our competitors, because we actually resolve three customer concerns (Security, Privacy, and Business Identity) whereas our competitors only resolve one.

Trust Guard ASV Certified PCI Scanning Features

Main Features:

• Daily or Quarterly scans with seals to protect your server against 30,000 vulnerabilities
• ASV certified PCI Scanning combined with Trust Guard’s Website Verification adds more credibility
• No software or programs to download or install
• Automated scanning with email notifications so you’re always up-to-date
• Professional PCI support available to help you with your compliance needs

Besides being the only company to offer PCI security, privacy, and business identity seal options, Trust Guard plans to further differentiate itself by being the only company to offer Quarterly PCI seals in addition to Daily seals.  Furthermore, Trust Guard’s pricing structure is targeted primarily to businesses processing less than 20,000 transactions per year, with prices equivalent to about half the price of their competitors such as McAfee Secure and Control Scan.

Because PCI scanning services and requirements can be very confusing, Trust Guard has gone to great lengths to help simplify the process while making it easier to understand. Laws are continually changing and most online business owners don’t understand the importance of PCI scanning and therefore miss out on the power of giving consumers the protection and confidence they’re looking for.

What is a “privacy seal”? It is a special seal or emblem that a company allows you to put on your website that will let the public know that you are protected from that company. Some companies that offer the privacy seal are the BBB (Better Business Bureau), Trust Guard, TrustE, etc. Privacy seals are important for a website because of the security that they offer the public. Just seeing these seals will inspire peace of mind for the consumer.

BBBOnLine is no longer accepting new applications for its Privacy seal program or its related Kids or JIPDEC seal programs. If your company is interested in building trust with visitors to your web site, consider the Trust Guard privacy seal program. It incorporates privacy notice requirements with other general good business practices to show site visitors that you have met high standards for the web.

Trust Guard also offers individual seals or a multi-seal package. This ensures that you are getting the perfect seal or seals for your business needs. Trust Guard is a service that helps online merchants increase visitor confidence on their web site. When a merchant is approved and purchase the Trust Guard seals such as the Security Seal, Privacy Seal, Business Verified Seal, and Certified Seal they are given access to post the Trust Guard seals on their website. Visitors can click on the Seals to view the verification certificate, giving confidence and helping convince the customer to buy. Increasing the merchant’s conversion rates by sometimes up to as much as 15-60% and most of the time even higher.

Here is a testimonial from a Trust Guard customer, “Your Privacy Verified seal gave me a 4x bump in my tests, and your Security Verified seal is converting the same as Hacker Safe! You’ve saved me about $1,300 per year, plus I’ll get more sales due to the additional seals!”
~ Richard Mouser
Mr. Water Filter

Another company that offers a privacy seal is TrustE. This is from their website, “Build trust and drive revenue with the TRUSTe privacy seal. Displaying the TRUSTe seal demonstrates that your site complies with our best practices. Sign up and let consumers know they can trust you more than other businesses when it comes to online privacy.”

Once again, isn’t peace of mind the best commodity you can offer a consumer! Seeing a privacy seal will not only offer this peace of mind, but it will also create a loyal customer for life!

Have you ever wondered what the Better Business Bureau does with online companies? Well you are in luck cause I did some research and found out about the BBBOnline. With more and more trust problems online the BBB comes to the rescue. BBBOnline is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Council of the Better Business Bureau and is targeted towards promoting trust and confidence in online business transactions.

The BBBOnline works with the Federal Trade Commission to expose fraudulent businesses and scams that might be committed against general consumers by online businesses. How is that for protection? Pretty good I would say!

BBBOnline provides three seals that certify that a website exercises responsible privacy policies and has met the strict guidelines set by the council of Better Business Bureaus for conducting ethical business practices online.

The three seals provided by BBBOnline are:

1. Reliability Seal – This certifies that the company holding the seal is a member of the local Better Business Bureau and has met the guidelines set for ethical advertising and reliability.

2. Privacy Seal – This seal certifies that the company holding the seal conforms to the set guidelines for information privacy standards.

3. Kid’s Privacy Seal – The BBBOnline Kid’s Privacy Seal is targeted towards protecting privacy of information collected from children. The Kid’s Privacy seal is granted to only those websites that comply strictly with the guidelines set for safeguarding information collected from young children on the web.

The BBBOnline Privacy program offers the following:

1. A BBBOnline seal to online business that posts privacy policies on their websites which adheres to the required “core” principles such as security, choice and disclosure.

2. Monitors regulation compliance by member businesses by requiring participating companies to undertake at least an annual assessment of their online privacy policies.

3. Provide solutions for the settlement of online business disputes.

4. On non-compliance, specific consequences are imposed on the company that includes seal withdrawal, referral to government enforcement agencies and negative publicity.

You can always find out more at www.bbb.org/online where some of this information was extracted from.

The Better Business Bureau has been operational for more than 80 years and has been committed ever since to provide business reliability reports, online consumer dispute resolutions and raising general awareness for ethical and unethical businesses for the general buying consumers. The main objective of BBB is to help both consumers to build trust in businesses as well as to online businesses to grow and maintain a healthy relationship with their customers.

Placing the BBBOnline seals on a website not only marks an online business to be ethical in nature, but it also helps the business to win trust of existing and potential customers and generate greater sales.

The internet today is flooded with scams and fraudulent business practices which makes it difficult for general buying customers to differentiate between a legitimate and illegitimate business unless they see a reliability seal certified by a trusted and reputed organization such as the BBBOnline. Once a customer sees the seal on a website, they can rest assured that the sensitive information passed on to the website is safeguarded and the website conducts ethical business practices.

How to know if a website is BBBOnline certified

There are two ways to verify that a website is accredited by the BBBOnline privacy program.

1. A BBBOnline privacy seal will be placed on the website’s home page or the privacy policy page. A valid seal will always be linked to their website.

2. There is also a directory maintained by BBBOnline on their website where they list all the participating websites and even provide a search function for quick verification of a company or website.

We hope this article has helped you find out more about building trust and confidence with your online customers.

Network perimeter and web site infringement are increasing day by day, which can result in a critical damage to your business. McAfee Secure for Web Sites provides a number of services like web applications and daily network perimeter scanning (PCI Scanning), so that the website owners have the latest information on their vulnerability risk profile. This also helps to establish consumer trust if you let them know that their personal and private information is safe. It also includes all the benefits of the McAfee PCI Certification Service.

McAfee Secure has the following features:

• Network security management tool:

McAfee Secure provides a complete and handy range of network security management tools. It also helps to retrieve vulnerability data and other information to recognize a quick remedy for the issues. McAfee Secure for websites also provides tools which inspect single websites or even complex networks.

• Entire network discovery:

McAfee Secure reduces the complex process of managing the public IP network security. The advanced technology is intelligent enough to help you rapidly discover, recognize and observe network devices. It also helps to find identify unauthorized services from any IP sub-net range.

• Network security review:

The scanning process includes three steps, which are: i) dynamic port scanning, ii) port-level network services vulnerability testing and iii) web application vulnerability testing. You can launch scans whenever it is required.

• Technical support when needed:

The certified security specialists are there to provide online technical assistance or via telephone or email. With McAfee Technical Assist support you can obtain vulnerability remediation. In addition, you can also get recommendations regarding address security issues which are uncovered by daily reviewing.

McAfee Secure will provide you the following benefits:

• Ensures that the website does not have critical vulnerabilities:

Recognizes threats from the potential issues before any damage is caused to your organization. An extra measure of security is provided through daily vulnerability scanning and active monitoring.

• Keeps your website free from malwares using the best practices:

Prevents the system as well as its visitors from the security threats which include virus infections, Trojans, phising, spyware, etc. Thus it provides security against identity theft and other kinds of fraud and scams.

• McAfee Secure certification displays industry-standard security:

You can certify your real-time security status to a third party standard, which is formed by the world’s largest dedicated security company. Also, you can promote the certified security publicly by displaying the McAfee Secure trustmark in your site.

• Flawless software-as-a-service provisioning

The online application is fast and user friendly and you don’t have to install any software or hardware.

• Protects your infrastructure and network perimeter using configurable scanning

You can protect the entire network perimeter by enrolling the company domain and its IP addresses. You can also scan the shopping carts, ports, internet services, servers etc. on a regular basis to keep away the known vulnerabilities. Daily security status of the network perimeter can also be known.

• Continuous coverage

You can achieve flawless protection through continuous comparisons between the scans of your current system configuration and threats. There is continuous upgradation of the vulnerability database from hundreds of sources worldwide.

• Provides the resources that are needed to certify the PCI DSS compliance

With the help of Visa International, McAfee Secure has developed a system that needs to be successfully completed for validating the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard or PCI DSS compliance.

* Some of this information was found at Mcafeesecure.com

TRUSTe is an organization known for its Website Privacy Seal. TRUSTe runs the world’s largest privacy seal certification program. They currently provide privacy verification services to websites that want to provide their customers with knowledge that they have been vetted out by a third party.

The mission of TRUSTe is to establish trusting relationships between individuals and online organizations based on respect for personal identity. TRUSTe was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

The Internet is a network which has much to offer but you can give away a lot of information about yourself if you are not careful. It is not always harmful to give your personal data to internet, but some information like email password, bank account password, credit card information etc., can affect you in the future. Companies that value your privacy online should be able to ensure you that your personal data will be protected. TRUSTe and other companies can give you that assurance, by providing third party verification to ensure that the company/website protects your information.

Let’s take a look at the website privacy seal programs of TRUSTe,

• Web Privacy Seal
• Email Privacy Seal
• EU Safe Harbor Seal
• International Services
• Children’s Privacy Seal
• Japan Privacy Seal

Features of Web Privacy Seal of TRUSTe:

• Well known and organized Auto Scan system
• Deep investigation technique to identify each and every privacy thread
• Help in legal compliance with email and privacy laws
• Continuous validation of security
• Builds trust among the visitors

Benefits of Web Privacy Seal of TRUSTe:

• The Web Privacy Program gives you a privacy statement that is 100% accurate to your business.
• TRUSTe’s trained team helps you to identify potential privacy threats that would otherwise go unnoticed – saving your reputation and your pocket too.
• Leveraging their third party dispute resolution processes to extend your customer care.
• Build trust and confidence with your customers and prospects at the point of email collection by displaying TRUSTe’s seal.
• TRUSTe helps you streamline legal compliance with email and privacy laws.
• TRUSTe teaches to follow CAN-SPAM acts.

Let’s take a look at the process of TRUSTe Web Privacy Certification:

1. You need to go to the online certification center to prepare an application. You have to create a profile, complete a self assessment and services agreement, and submit your privacy policy for review.
2. An experienced TRUSTe services manager will review your site. You will then receive a detailed report filled with suggestions to make your site according to their standards. Once it will be completed, you will be awarded TRUSTe’s seals for display on your web site.
3. Once the seal is awarded, TRUST e will continue to monitor your site to ensure you are following the standards. If they find some problem, they will notify you to take care of that.

Building trust online these days is essential to any online business company. Customers need to know that their private information is kept safe and not sold or shared. Hopefully this article has shed some light on the importance of a privacy policy and privacy seals.

Hacking is one of the major problems in the internet nowadays. If you want a very simple definition on hacking, you can think of it as, “unauthorized entry and use of network resources”. The term “hacker” originally meant a very gifted programmer, but in recent times it now has many negative implications. I am going to spend some time talking about what hackers can do and how detrimental this can be to your business but I am also going to give you a remedy which is Hackersafe so lets get down to business.

There are different ways, by which your network can be hacked. They are as follows:

• Viruses – most common form of attack
• Denial of service attacks
• Trojans
• Password attacks
• Port scanning and spoofing etc.

I have no idea what most of these above words are but I know that the most important thing is to keep my computers, networks, and websites safe from these problems. Normally your network system might have some loopholes from where some unauthorized entries can interrupt the process. You need to find out those loopholes and block them to secure the network. But sometimes you might miss some points and your network may not be fully secured. In this kind of situation, Hackersafe plays a big role.

A third party tool (scanner) will scan your network where you host your website and credit card information. Once the scanning service is sure that there are no loopholes or vulnerabilities, from where your network can be hacked, they will approve the security and provide you with a certification about the safety of your network. This certification is known as the Hackersafe Certification or PCI Scanning.

Benefits of being HackerSafe Certified:

Now it is important to know the benefits of the HackerSafe services, and why anyone should believe the security certification seal. Benefits are:

• Expertly organized scanning and notification – Each and every HackerSafe certification providers have some well known scanning system. It will scan the whole network in a very organized way and notify you about the errors and weaknesses that need to be fixed.
• Continuous validation of security – Continuous validation of security is another benefit of HackerSafe verification. They will continuously validate the security to locate any inaccuracies. Whether you have made the changes according to their suggestions that will be also validated by them.
• Assurance of zero false – In general the HackerSafe verification services will try to break the network security through different types of avenues and then they will come to a conclusion the network has vulnerabilities, from where it can be hacked. After you are aware of the issues with your network you will be notified to make the necessary changes and HackerSafe will determine whether you have made the changes according to their notifications.
• Assurance of only relevant, actionable information – They will do an in depth analysis of the content also, to figure out whether you have any irrelevant and non performing information in your network or not. If someone tries to enter in your network in an unwanted way, there is a chance that some irrelevant content is found within your system. HackerSafe can give you the assurance of only relevant content.
• Manual testing – Your network will go through different kind of manual testing during the HackerSafe verification process. Automated tools may skip some errors where you need any justification to point out the error, but manual testing can find errors that can be missed by the automated tools.

These are the benefits of HackerSafe and PCI Scanning. These services can ensure the security of your network from A to Z. Note: HackerSafe was officially acquired by McAfee on February 7, 2008.