Organisations which perform the majority of PCI assessments will be assessed every year
PCI to assess the assessors
/v3-uk/news/1969085/pci-assess-assessors
17 Nov 2008, Phil Muncaster , V3
The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) today announced a new programme designed to improve consistency among qualified security assessors tasked with determining the compliance status of organisations affected by PCI.
The initiative will give Qualified Security Assessors and Approved Scanning Vendors a set of requirements to comply with if they want to retain the ability to conduct PCI assessments.
Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI SSC, explained that the programme will complement the current training and strict applications vetting process.
"This is the next evolutionary cycle, and we wanted to take things a bit further by looking at the reports [the assessors generate]," he said. "This quality assurance programme is because there are now so many assessors out there, not because we've had any complaints about them."
The organisations which perform the majority of PCI assessments will be assessed every year, while those which are less prolific will go through the cycle every two or three years, unless a complaint is lodged against them. In this case they will jump to the head of the queue, said Russo.
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Do you agree?
PCI qualified security assessors
I welcome the news that the PCI Security Standards Council has announced a quality assurance program for qualified security assessors.
Determining the appropriate scope is one of the most difficult components of the PCI compliance exercise. A multitude of end point devices, virtualisation, and other technologies can sometimes create more questions than they answer, which is why auditing the auditors for consistency - especially as it relates to scoping - is a very good thing.
There is now a growing acceptance of the importance of PCI compliance within the industry. Indeed, companies can spend months creating a detailed audit trail to provide evidence to PCI assessors that all policies and procedures have been diligently followed.
The introduction of more rigorous guidelines in the latest release of PCI DSS in version 1.2 will now ensure that assessments are consistent across the industry and should ultimately help more companies to achieve and maintain compliance.
Yours sincerely
Robert Kidd
General Manager, EMEA
Tripwire
www.tripwire.com
Posted by Robert Kidd, 28 Nov 2008