Payment Card Industry (PCI)
In 2004 the Payment Card Industry Security Standard Council was formed and subsequently created the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. The standard brought together 5 major card brands to consolidate disparate security programs and to increase controls around cardholder data to reduce credit card fraud . Validation of compliance is performed annually with validation requirements based on the card processing volume of the merchant organization. The PCI SSC website is https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ and the PCI DSS can be found at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/documents.php?document=pci_dss_v2-0#pci_dss_v2-0.
Since PCI compliance was mandated by the card brands (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express, and JCB) to improve merchant payment card security, debates have emerged on the value and effectiveness of the security compliance standard in actually improving security. You should be able to find several articles that discuss both sides of the issue.
Requirements
1. Choose a few industry articles on both sides of the issue and present your point of view on the value of PCI compliance.
2. Use reference sources to support you argument either pro or con. Include your sources.
