To protect the security of cardholder data, the PCI Security Standards Council requires organizations working with payment cards to maintain compliance with PCI DSS. If you are an organization that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, ask our authorized QSA service company, “How do you conduct a PCI audit?” you may be asking.

A PCI audit is a rigorous review of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which consists of approximately 400 individual controls and is a critical part of staying in business for any merchant, service provider or sub-service provider involved in the processing of cardholder data.

The service typically takes several days onsite for our QSAs to meet with the administrators overseeing the PCI DSS program, key personnel involved in network management and cardholder systems, and people responsible for company procedures and policies.

• Scoping: A task begins with a preliminary assessment of your scope and compliance requirements.
• Pre-assessment information gathering: During this step, our PCI DSS QSA will perform a pre-assessment that includes network design review, security policy review, and onsite visit preparation.
• QSA PCI DSS audit: We will perform a full inspection of your cardholder data environment against the 12 PCI DSS requirements and gather evidence that your controls are in place and operating effectively.
• Complete PCI DSS AoC: After we complete all remediation items, we will submit the completed RoC to our internal QA process and confirm that your organization is compliant, before making the AoC ready for official shipping.