It does not matter if you are accepting cards through a mobile device, online, or with a POS system, there is something that is of utmost concern—security.
You need to make sure all the equipments that are capable of accepting payments are secure as possible. You need to make sure that there is a considerable amount of technology that is used in order to employ all the security needs.
Technology is essential in order to create a barrier that keeps hackers and criminals at bay. There should be no loopholes in your credit card reader or other POS devices, because that is the first thing that criminals look for when they are about to attack a system.
In this article we discuss about the security of credit card readers, and how to keep them as secure as possible.
EMV
An EMV is known as a smart card or a chip card. This is what has become the global standard for credit and debit cards. This based on a technology that was developed by both Visa and Mastercard. It has features that boost security like magnetic strips that are employed in credit and debit cards. This allows the card to be processed securely and prevents data from being stolen by identity thieves and hackers who are looking forward to make transactions with other people’s credit card.
You need to make sure that you accept EMV cards only. By doing so you make the credit card reader more secure and safe. You can also accept cards that are offering additional security.
Payment Card Industry Standards
This is a data security standard that was implemented to protect customers and organisations by creating a certain set of rules. These set of protocols were framed, while responding to the numerous amount of security breaches that involved the use of credit card readers.
These breaches involved both small scale and large scale industries. If your credit card reader does not comply with these set of standards, your credit card reader will be open to vulnerabilities and loopholes, and also you will be facing larger fines from organisations like MasterCard and Visa. Nobody wants to pay a huge fine and also at the same time put the business at risk.
But you need to know that complying with these standards cannot assure you with no more breaches at all, it just helps in keeping fraudsters away to a large extent.
Tokenisation
This is a step that involves a method that does not collect or store important information on your system. It helps in storing the minimal amount of information is sent and received. Some of the information includes—authorisation codes and transaction details. It embeddeds the information to a string of characters, so that only the authorised party can only access the secured information. This goes great with the Payment Card Industry Standards, also keeps nasty criminals away.
End To End Encryption
You might have figured out what this type of security standard does. The information is secure because it can be accessed only by the card reader and the destination—there is no in between. The ending point is usually a processor that helps in accepting and approving funds that has to be transferred to the business account.
Secure Sockets Layer
This SSL layer protocol, that helps in adding several layers over the information that is transferred, so that it makes it hard for the hackers to capture to the information. Even if they do so, it is very hard to extract the information and other sensitive data. This is one of the security measures that have to be taken by both small and large organisations, in order to ensure proper security.
Biometrics
The use of Biometrics have increased day by day. It has been used in a large number of transactions and on credit card readers as well. This is the most secure method in which a transaction can take place because it is near to impossible when it comes to impersonation. There are a lot of options that are available when it comes to Biometrics. Some of them include retina scanning, fingerprint sensors, vein patterns and voice recognition.
These methods ensure that there is no security breaches and also that the identity of the person cannot be replicated in any way. These type of payments are used by a large number of multinational companies, that ensure customers get the best of the security. There are many credit card readers that approve transactions only if the biometrics match with the database.
There are a lot of specialized credit card readers that are available from Shopify that you can use from. Also it is important to stay vigilant for any suspicious activity when you are carrying out transactions.