A rise in cyber crime has paralleled the rise of online shopping. This comes in many forms, although it must be said now, that cyber crime is no more prevalent than shopping with a credit card in real life.
However, the finance industry realised that they must address this situation in order to both protect consumers and to encourage further the growth of online shopping. Thus a set of standards known as the PCI DSS came into being. These standards were arrived at by the credit card companies, and stand for the Payment Card Industry data Security Standard.
This basically means that any business that accepts payments online must now adhere to the new financial industry standards, regardless of the size. These standards come in the form of a series of self assessment questionnaires. For some businesses, this is enough, especially if they deal mainly through PayPal. For other companies that accept payments themselves, the questionnaire will lead onto more rules, and also pci compliance penetration testing.
Compliance with these standards helps both the consumer and the business itself. For the consumer, they can shop with confidence, knowing that the website they are using has complied with these standards. For the businesses themselves, they know that as long as they have complied with the standards, they will be covered in the event that a stolen card is used, or some other fraud committed.
There is more information to be found online about PCI standards, and if you are considering setting up a website that will accept online payments, then it is of vital importance.