The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has established a program designed to mitigate card theft. At this juncture, most folks in the industry have surely heard of it: the Qualified Integrator and Reseller (QIR) program. The QIR effort is part of a larger initiative by Visa to mitigate cardholder data security breaches at small businesses – which typically do not have the same data security resources as larger organizations. Visa is relying on the PCI SSC to develop and maintain the QIR program.
The PCI SSC is uniquely situated to manage the QIR program standards since they also manage the Payment Application Data Security Standards (PA-DSS) program. The PA-DSS program “promotes the development and implementation of secure commercial payment applications that do not store prohibited data, and helps to ensure that payment applications support compliance with the PCI DSS.” It’s a verbose way of saying that the program is designed to minimize card theft and security breaches.
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