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How About A Little Service Provider Responsibility Here, PCI-Wise?
When I make this point to clients, the reseller/integrator frequently claims that it is completely out of PCI scope, because it does not store, process or transmit any cardholder data. Rather than repeating all the arguments, the PCI Council can do all parties involved a great service by clarifying what actions, tasks or duties would cause a reseller/integrator to be considered a service provider.
Resellers/integrators should weigh in with the PCI Council and offer their perspective, which may be different from mine. I hope they do this, and I hope the Council will balance retailers’ need for security in clarifying this issue.
I’ll take a pass on requesting additional guidance, because the Council has three Special Interest Groups (SIGs) currently working on guidance for cloud computing, E-Commerce and risk analysis. Each SIG is active, and we can expect their reports later this year.
Then there’s the 12.8.2 issue, the one about service providers taking responsibility. I raised this issue at the PCI Community meeting two years ago. I heard some agreement from the card brand people there, and I saw people taking notes. Unfortunately, nothing has happened to fix this unbalanced situation.
I spoke to the counsel for a large service provider about this seemingly one-sided requirement. They felt the merchant only needed to know the service provider was PCI compliant to meet 12.8.2. I disagreed, noting that the requirement explicitly deals with acknowledgement of responsibility, not just compliance. Alternatively, if the PCI Council believes I am mistaken and merchants can meet 12.8.2 by simply validating their service provider is PCI compliant, then they need to rewrite the requirement to state that.
Most retailers probably feel we have enough PCI requirements, and we don’t need to add any more. I suggest we need at least one new requirement based on recent compromises of POS equipment. That requirement is to mandate physical inspection of POS devices on a regular basis.
PCI already requires that retailers document their daily log analysis, semi-annual firewall rule reviews, quarterly vulnerability scans and quarterly tests for rogue wireless networks. Given at least one retailer’s recent experience, now is the time to add regular (monthly? quarterly?) inspection of all POS devices for evidence of tampering.
The PCI Council has an excellent publication that describes what retailers need to do. It even has pictures. Now is the time to go beyond “best practices” and make regular, physical inspection a requirement.
-Marc
March 29th, 2012 at 4:45 pm
I appreciate the one-sideness issue highlighted in this article. I also understand how card brands have a contractual link to merchants – but only rarely do with service providers. I’d find it virtually meaningless for the PCI requirement to mandate actions by the service provider, when they have no contracted responsibility to a commercial entity. That said, 12.8.4 places an obligation on the service provider to demonstrate compliance to their customer the merchant (or service provider, Acquirer etc).
Is not the combination of these 2 requirements having the same outcome?
March 30th, 2012 at 11:37 am
Thanks for the comment, Lyal. I am not sure I agree with your position on the “contractual link” part, though. Actually, service providers do have direct links to the card brands. For example, many have direct system connections/access points to the card networks. More importantly, all service providers validate their PCI compliance to the card brands. The brands (at least Visa and MasterCard) also post lists of compliant Level 1 Service Providers on their websites.
My point was not so much about the card brands, though. I was observing that since PCI already has a number of requirements that only apply only to Service Providers and not to merchants, there is precedent for one more Service-provider-only requirement to cure the imbalance I noted.
Then again, if all it takes to meet 12.8.2 is for the service provider to be PCI compliant, then all the PCI Council has to do is declare it in a FAQ or clarify the wording of the requirement.
I (and more importantly, retailers and other merchants!) could be happy either way. It is the present, one-sided nature of this specific requirement (12.8.2) that is disappointing.
April 5th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Walt, I’d suggest that perhaps you have a limited concept of who would be considered a Service Provider under the guidelines that you’ve suggested. The fact is that most resellers/integrators do NOT have direct links to the card brands or the card networks. They may work with processors to board new merchants or provide support, but there is no contractual or legal obligation at all. Your comment that all service provides validate their PCI compliance is also way off base if you include resellers & integrators. The limited number of Level 1 Service Providers probably do validate their compliance, but the vast majority of resellers/integrators are not that big.
Lyal is correct that for most “service providers” (using your definition to include resellers/integrators) there is no contractual obligation or liability to an acquirer or a card brand. The only financial relationship is with the merchant. Adding your suggested line to the DSS won’t change that. In an ideal world it might encourage merchants to pursue the step further, but in reality it won’t happen. There is no incentive to the service provider and most (almost all) merchants won’t care to ask. If they do ask, and the service provider refuses to provide formal acknowledgment, the merchant has no options, short of completely replacing their POS system.
Regardless of precedent, there’s nothing that PCI can hold over most resellers/integrators and force them to accept liability. The only option would be to do follow the precedent of payment applications and begin validating and certifying resellers/integrators. But even that only works if the Acquirers actually verify the information. You’ll still have Heartland sales people who are willing to fudge numbers & board any merchant with a pulse. And you’ll still have the kid down the street who’s willing to setup a router from Walmart so the merchant can offer WIFI. All that would do is put legitimate resllers/integrators who are actually trying, out of business.