Pumping Up Data Security. At the Gas Station?

Gary Palgon
Vice President, Product Management
nuBridges

That’s right. On January 1st Visa Inc. started requiring all new fuel-dispensing machines across the US to support the Triple Data Encryption Standard (TDES).  This mandate is designed to make it more difficult for identity thieves to steal debit card data from gas pumps by shielding the personal identification numbers (PIN) of customers.  Even though Visa is the only credit card company mandating the use of encryption at the pump, it’s expected to become part of a broader initiative being developed by the PCI Security Standards Council for unattended POS systems  -- self-service gas pumps, ATMs, retail kiosks as well as PIN entry devices that are monitored by employees at a retail location.

Gas station owners have until July 1, 2010 to ensure that all of their existing pumps are upgraded to support Triple Data Encryption Standard.  What’s more, they’ll also need to ensure that the POS systems on their pumps comply by July 2010 with a separate payment application security standard drafted by Visa and then adopted by the PCI Security Standards Council.

As a member of the PCI Security Standards Council, nuBridges is involved in reviewing and commenting on the new standards set to go into effect in 2010. I’ll use nuBlog to keep you up-to-date on the progress of this initiative.

Until next week,
Gary