Small Business Owners Common views on Data Security
Small business owners may think they can’t afford the time or the money necessary to ensure their business is compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards. The fact is, they can’t afford not to as data thieves are increasingly targeting small businesses.
Excuse: Data thieves aren’t interested in my small business. They go after the big guys.
Nearly 80 percent of the small merchants in a resent survey felt they had no risk or very little risk of a data compromise however, their confidence is misguided. Hackers and data thieves originally focused on merchants with the highest transaction volumes, those retailers have made the effort to become PCI DSS compliant. In turn, data thieves are focusing on easier targets; such as small businesses and using automated tools to probe for vulnerabilities.
The understanding isn’t there that it’s not a personal attack, but an automated attack where these technologies are actually fishing through the Internet or fishing through payment systems to find those that are vulnerable; simple.
More and more small merchants have their payment functions connected to the Internet, they’re increasingly vulnerable.
Small businesses owners may think “I’m just a small mom-and-pop store. Why would anyone attack me?”It’s not that hackers are going after Simbo Foods convenience store. They are simply creating an automated tool or tools that probe the Internet and if Simbo Foods convenience store has a vulnerability they’ll pounce on the merchant.”
More proof that you’re at risk? In a June 2012 communique from Visa; Visa said that 97 percent of the data breaches in the USA reported to the company in 2011 occurred at small merchants.
PCI Data Security Standard
Excuse: If the big guys can’t stop them, Neither can I.
Whether a retailer is large or small, hackers look for easy access to data. For example, they’re more likely to go after merchants who don’t use strong passwords.
Hackers are not going to spend countless hours trying to break into a small merchant, If the merchants protect themselves with some basic components, they’re not going to be 100 percent bullet proof however, they will have taken a step that will significantly mitigate a breach event.
Excuse: PCI DSS compliance is too complicated.
67 percent of eCommerce merchants were knowledgeable about PCI DSS; only 51 percent of brick-and-mortar merchants said they were familiar with it. But only half of those who know about PCI DSS actually validate that they are compliant. The rest state they don’t understand it, don’t have the resources to handle it or are still working on it.
Business owners can learn more about PCI DSS by talking to companies that specialize in it or by consulting with their own service providers.
Security First Merchant Services, LLC look at that as a key role for us hence, our company name. We do everything in our power to educate and to reinforce the critical need for PCI compliance. As part of standard pricing, for example: SFMS offers its customers the resources to help all merchants make their credit card processing much more secure.
However, we can’t do it for the merchants; merchants must be willing to invest a short amount of time to gain some basic understanding of the concept of data security.
Data storage – old and new
Excuse: PCI DSS compliance is too expensive.
Data breach would cost a lot more; merchant’s direct costs of recovering from a security breach average $194 per stolen record. So if a data thief stole roughly 200 customer records, your costs could be almost $39,000 in total
The costs of becoming PCI DSS compliant will vary according to merchant;s size and the type of retail business they’re running.
Placing a lock on the backend of your business to secure your data by complying with PCI DSS isn’t much different from, physically securing your store.
In closing, You wouldn’t trust your neighbors not to come into your store if you didn’t put a lock on it, you’d invest in a lock and may be a security system as well and write it off as another cost of doing business; Contact your Security First Merchant Services Account Executive today ~ 877-671-2511.
Security First Merchant Services,LLC~Computer Security
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Security First Merchant Services is a One Stop business focused payment solutions company that strives to provide payment processing, small business loans, and credit repair services with a high level of detail and flexibility.
Security First Merchant Services, LLC 
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