VZB Service Gets PCI-Compliant

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. -- Verizon Business is now offering retailers and financial service providers even stronger safeguards for protecting credit card holders’ confidential data.

Verizon Business is among the first major service providers hosting confidential data for credit card payments to implement stringent industry standards that make it harder for thieves to obtain information from either online or retailer-site transactions. Verizon Business has successfully implemented the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard into its two U.S. Managed Hosting Smart Centers and achieved compliance with the Visa U.S.A. Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) for its Transaction Services Network.

Verizon Business U.S. Smart Centers are positioned at the heart of Verizon’s global IP network, and customers rely on them to handle the management and monitoring of their critical Web infrastructure and applications.

The enhanced protections come at time when credit card fraud continues to increase. According to industry experts, data breaches are very burdensome for business -- both to the bottom line and to the breached organization’s brand. An April 10, 2007, Forrester report, “Calculating The Cost Of A Security Breach” by Khalid Kark, determined that “a security breach can cost you [the business that is breached] between $90 and $305 per record. This means that the cost of a single, significant breach may run into millions or even billions of dollars.”

Verizon Business