As the use of credit and debit cards becomes increasingly prevalent in our daily lives, businesses must ensure the security of sensitive financial information. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) were created to establish guidelines for businesses to follow to protect their customers’ payment card information.
In order to become PCI compliant, businesses must meet a set of requirements outlined by the PCI Security Standards Council. These requirements include maintaining a secure network, protecting cardholder data, maintaining a vulnerability management program, implementing strong access control measures, and regularly monitoring and testing networks.
One important aspect of PCI compliance is the requirement for regular penetration testing, also known as pentesting. Pentesting is a simulated attack on a network or system to identify vulnerabilities that a real-world attacker could exploit. This is an essential step in identifying and mitigating potential security threats.
The PCI DSS requires that businesses perform regular internal and external pentesting. Internal pentesting should be conducted by a qualified security professional regularly and include all systems and networks that store, process, or transmit cardholder data. External pentesting should be conducted by a qualified third party and include all Internet-facing systems and networks.
Additionally, businesses are required to document and report the results of their pentesting to their acquiring bank or merchant service provider. This includes identifying any vulnerabilities that were discovered and describing the steps taken to remediate them.
It is important to note that PCI compliance is not a one-time event, but rather an ongoing process. Businesses must continuously monitor and update their security measures in order to stay compliant with the PCI DSS.
To achieve PCI DSS compliance, businesses must conduct internal and external penetration testing.
Internal penetration testing, also known as internal penetration assessment, is conducted by an organization’s own personnel or a qualified third-party on the internal network. This testing simulates an attack from inside the network and aims to identify vulnerabilities in the internal systems, networks, and applications. The goal is to identify and remediate vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit with privileged access to the internal network.
External penetration testing, also known as external penetration assessment, simulates an attack that originates from outside the network, such as from the internet. This type of testing aims to identify vulnerabilities in Internet-facing systems, networks, and applications. The goal is to identify and remediate vulnerabilities that could be exploited by an attacker who does not have privileged access to the internal network.
Both internal and external penetration testing must be conducted by a qualified and independent third-party penetration tester, who is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council. The auditor will assess the documentation and evidence of the pentest and other security controls to validate the organization’s compliance.
While fully automated penetration testing solutions can certainly be useful for identifying vulnerabilities in a network or system, they may not be sufficient for meeting the PCI DSS penetration testing requirements.
The PCI DSS requires that penetration testing be conducted by a qualified and independent third-party penetration tester, who is certified by the PCI Security Standards Council. The use of fully automated solutions alone would not meet this requirement as it does not include human expertise and interpretation.
Additionally, fully automated solutions may not be able to identify all types of vulnerabilities and may not be able to identify the same vulnerabilities in the same way that a human tester might. It is also possible that a fully automated solution might not be able to accurately identify the business impact of a vulnerability.
That being said, fully automated solutions can be used as complementary solutions, used in conjunction with manual testing to increase the coverage and efficiency of the testing process. They can be used to identify low-hanging fruit vulnerabilities and can be used to test the effectiveness of the organization’s remediation efforts.
In summary, while fully automated pentesting solutions can be useful in identifying vulnerabilities, they alone may not be sufficient for meeting the PCI DSS penetration testing requirements, as it requires a human expertise and interpretation to validate the results and the compliance.
A fully automated penetration testing solution can help a company achieve PCI compliance faster and with lower cost in several ways:
It’s important to note, that fully automated solution should be used as a complementary solution to manual testing, not as a replacement. Automated solutions can help identify low-hanging fruit vulnerabilities, but manual testing still required to validate the results, interpret the findings and assess the business impact of a vulnerability.
In summary, fully automated penetration testing solutions can help a company achieve PCI compliance faster and with lower cost by increasing coverage, reducing costs, providing continuous testing, and making it easier to remediate vulnerabilities.
Prancer Cloud Security Solution can help companies to be compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) by providing a comprehensive solution for securing cloud resources and infrastructure. The solution can connect to cloud providers and automatically assess the configuration of cloud resources against PCI DSS compliance requirements in real-time. This allows companies to quickly identify and address any potential compliance issues. Furthermore, Prancer can connect to git repositories for Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and ensure that all infrastructure codes going to the cloud are compliant before deployment. This helps to prevent any non-compliant configurations from being deployed in the first place.
On the offensive security front, Prancer’s proprietary Pentesting as Code (PAC) platform can help application developers to understand the security vulnerabilities in their applications before deploying to higher environments. This enables them to address any issues before they can be exploited by attackers. Additionally, the Red Team can leverage the power of Prancer’s pentesting engine to validate the security of applications in runtime and ensure that there are no vulnerabilities present. It is important to note that based on the PCI DSS compliance, companies still need to do manual pentesting to report to the auditor. However, Prancer’s solution can automate much of the compliance validation process, making it easier for companies to achieve and maintain PCI DSS compliance.
