Addressing New PCI DSS 4.0 Security Concerns With Payments Orchestration

How many organizations are prepared to face modern payment security challenges?

According to a new S&P Global 451 Research report, very few.

Roughly 94% of organizations currently have significant concerns surrounding payment data security and only around 21% feel confident in their ability to protect customer data. 

With the compliance deadline for the fourth version of the PCI Data Security Standard looming, more businesses are feeling the pressures of emerging payment data security concerns.  

To overcome these security challenges and smoothly transition into PCI DSS 4.0 compliance, finding a reliable payment orchestration provider with advanced payment security technology is vital.

Let’s discuss these challenges in greater depth and explore how Spreedly can help. 

An Overview of the PCI DSS 4.0 Timeline

PCI DSS 4.0 is the latest iteration of the global security standard published in March 2022. 

Developed by the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC), PCI DSS 4.0 is designed to help address emerging threats related to new payment technologies. Additionally, PCI DSS 4.0 aims to enable more innovative methods for combatting these new threats. 

According to the official press release for PCI DSS 4.0:

“Updates to the standard focus on meeting the evolving security needs of the payments industry, promoting security as a continuous process, increasing flexibility for organizations using different methods to achieve security objectives, and enhancing validation methods and procedures.”

By the end of March 2024, the PCI DSS v3.2.1 will be officially retired, making PCI DSS 4.0 the new formal standard to comply with. As 2024 is fast approaching, the time is now for organizations to consider how this new version of the regulation impacts their approach to data and payment security.  

The Key Security Concerns Outlined in PCI DSS 4.0 

PCI DSS 4.0 aims to address emerging security concerns in the payment space — but what exactly are these security concerns and what is required of your organization for compliance?

Earlier in 2023, the Spreedly team published PCI DSS 4.0: What’s Next?, an in-depth break down of the latest regulatory updates and the high-level categories these new changes fall within. 

Let’s recap the four defined categories and how they relate to current security concerns: 

1. Network Security Controls: The new version of PCI DSS replaces the old terminology of “firewalls and routers” with “network security controls.” New network security control requirements seen in PCI DSS 4.0 aim to improve continuous monitoring and analysis to ensure real-time access controls are in place and suspicious behavior can be identified quickly. Additionally, PCI DSS 4.0 necessitates the use of advanced technologies with more powerful monitoring and security capabilities. 
2. Cardholder Data Protections: In the digital era of payments, protecting cardholder data has never been more important. PCI DSS 4.0 introduces new controls that focus explicitly on directly protecting cardholder data by requiring a highly secure cardholder data environment. The new version of the regulation also introduces stricter controls for handling, encrypting, and disposing of sensitive authentication data and primary account number (PAN) data. 
3. Process Maturity: Process maturity is a huge area of focus within PCI DSS 4.0 and emphasizes the need for more mature processes centered around role-based access, configuration management, risk assessment, and continuous monitoring. Rather than taking a one-and-done approach to process maturity, PCI DSS 4.0 pushes organizations to engage with more rigorous change control and data management processes to maintain highly secure configurations.

How Advanced Vaulting Aids in Overcoming the Challenge of PCI DSS 4.0

As noted earlier, S&P Global research uncovered that a vast majority of organizations do not feel prepared to deal with modern payment security concerns. 

This is not entirely surprising — as the payments environment has become more digitally complex, so have the technologies and tools needed to combat key security concerns. For smaller organizations without robust IT departments especially, this makes finding the right security solution providers crucial for achieving PCI DSS 4.0 compliance and for protecting payment data. 

In June of 2023, the Spreedly team announced the Advanced Vaulting solution which, among other capabilities, targets the complexities and inefficiencies of maintaining a payment vault. 

According to an S&P Global Market Intelligence report, Spreedly’s Advanced Vault can help to address several of the security concerns outlined in PCI DSS 4.0, including: 

• Continuous Monitoring for Duplicates and Stale Credentials: Merchant vaults can have anywhere from 20% to 25% duplicate cards, resulting in significant customer data management challenges and unnecessary fees. The Spreedly Advanced Vault solution continuously monitors for and unenrolls these duplicates, improving data quality and overall lifecycle management. The Advanced Vault also provides network tokens for eligible cards, helping to improve card data security and improve overall authorization rates. 
• Process Maturity: Spreedly’s Advanced Vault simultaneously optimizes vault management and provides necessary support for custom rules and configurations. For payment teams with specific business requirements, these capabilities are critically important for modernizing and maturing internal payment data management processes. 
• Protecting Cardholder Data: Both the Advanced Vault and Spreedly’s broader payment orchestration platform solution are PCI-Level 1 compliant — the highest level of PCI DSS compliance. Spreedly’s Advanced Vault is offered as a managed service, eliminating the complex burden of protecting cardholder data from your team’s shoulders. Through the optimization of account updater services and network tokens, Spreedly ensures cardholder data is kept secure. 

Reduce Your Team with Spreedly’s PCI-Compliant Solutions

As the 2024 PCI DSS 4.0 deadline quickly approaches, merchants and merchant aggregators must consider how to address emerging security concerns. 

Spreedly’s Advanced Vault helps simplify the complexity of PCI DSS 4.0, particularly in terms of protecting cardholder data and modernizing payment data management processes. With the support of the Advanced Vault and Spreedly’s payment orchestration platform, merchant businesses can take full advantage of the latest payment technologies without worrying about critical security threats. 

At Spreedly, we aim to achieve even greater feats with the Advanced Vault solution moving forward. From payment method data enrichment to expanding lifecycle management capabilities, Spreedly’s Advanced Vault provides fundamental support for PCI compliance and payment optimization. 

Talk with the Spreedly team today to discover how we can help you prepare for PCI DSS 4.0.

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