Payment Application Data Security Standard is a global Security Standard created and maintained by the PCI Council. It is currently the best payment application security practice in the world. It is a Security Standard requirement developed to help software vendors build secure payment applications that adhere to the PCI DSS Compliance norms. PA-DSS Compliance is typically applicable to third-party applications that store, process or transmit payment cardholder data as part of an authorization or settlement. Organizations looking to achieve PA-DSS Compliance need to review and audit their application by a PA-DSS Qualified Security Assessor from time to time. PA DSS Compliance ensures all the necessary application security controls are implemented, and software is developed in line with the best security practices.
We spend significant time with your senior management in Scope Definition which includes timelines, responsibilities, and budget for the implementation.
We conduct an “as-is” Gap Analysis of your organization vis-à-vis PA-DSS requirements.
We provide your business and software development team a brief Awareness Training on PA-DSS and discuss their responsibilities and timelines.
Our automated code review software checks source code for compliance with a predefined set of rules or best practices. Our analytical methods inspect and review source code to detect commonly known programming bugs.
We augment tool-assisted scans with a manual review of the underlying software architecture which cannot be evaluated by tools and especially without special engineering. We follow a proprietary methodology to discover and critique security points of interest relevant to the application’s architecture.
We focus on the underlying frameworks and toolkits the application depends on for critical functions. Our team then reviews the functional and non-functional behavior of these frameworks, model information flow, component interaction, and communication paths to detect weaknesses in the framework.
We conduct both automated and manual vulnerability assessments d in an Advanced Code Review and further explore attack surfaces and frameworks. This level of analysis is ideal for high-risk, business-critical software that cannot afford even low-severity security vulnerabilities.
Our team assesses and scans your web application to accurately identify vulnerabilities like an attacker. Using the top-end commercial tool and an in-house developed semi-automatic assessment portal, we ensure the possibility of false-positive or false-negative is the bare minimum.
As we believe it is just as important to fix bugs as it is to find them, our consultants provide you with a document outlining remediation guidance. We further support your team for queries during the actual remediation of weaknesses.
With all data in hand, our team then creates the document set as per PA-DSS requirements. Your inputs are required ONLY to validate the same.
Our expert conducts a User Training program for business personnel and the software development personnel for applications covered in scope in their specific responsibilities. This being an ongoing exercise, the training video shall be recorded and provided to you for future reference and training.
After a reasonable gestation period, a separate team of experts conduct a Pre-assessment of your setup.
Once all controls are confirmed to be in place, we help you get certified with our dedicated and duly separated team of auditors for PA-DSS.
We can provide you continual support (Managed Compliance Services) and help you stay compliant.
PA-DSS applies to software vendors and others who develop and sell customized payment applications that store, process, or transmit cardholder data and/or sensitive authentication data.
The basic difference between PCI DSS and PA DSS Compliance is that PCI DSS applies to all organizations that store process or transmit cardholder data. While PA DSS applies to applications only; customised payment applications that store, process or transmit card holder data and are involved in the authorized or settlement cycles. For more details on applicability of PA DSS, you can refer to our blog.
PA DSS helps software vendors and others develop secure payment applications and protect sensitive data such as the magnetic stripe, CVV2, or PIN data, and further ensure the payment applications support compliance with the PCI DSS.
Third-party applications that store, process, or transmit payment cardholder data as part of an authorization or settlement need to adhere to PA DSS norms. However, software applications developed by merchants for in-house use only are exempt from PA-DSS but need to comply with PCI DSS for securing the card data environment.
It depends on the scale of the applications, the various touchpoints of card data in the application and the type of card data being stored in the application databases. Significant amount of time is also taken to ensure that there are no security vulnerabilities in the application and the installation/operating manuals are descriptive enough.
PA-DSS validated POS application is mandated directly by the individual card brands. Currently, VISA Card and MasterCard have mandated the use of a PA DSS Validated POS Application.
PCI SSF is an updated version of the PA DSS framework. PCI SSF supports both the traditional and modern payment software including cloud and mobile platforms. The framework allows validation of both modern and traditional payment software using an “objective-based” approach to confirm application security and development practices. For more details, you can refer to our blog.