Articles tagged: PCI DSS
16 articles on PCI DSS from the Top Floor insights library.
2026-08-25
What Is a Compensating Control, and When Will an Assessor Accept One?
A compensating control substitutes for a requirement you cannot meet as stated. The word doing the work is constraint, and the acceptance test differs by regime: PCI DSS wants a worksheet, HIPAA wants a documented reason, DoD wants a written variance, and SOC 2 has no worksheet at all.
2026-08-23
AOC or ROC: Which PCI Document Does Your Customer Actually Want?
Your customer asks for your PCI report. Send the Attestation of Compliance, which the Council says is the document intended to be shared, and keep the Report on Compliance in house. Which one you must produce is decided by your acquirer, not by you and not by your assessor.
2026-08-22
PCI Segmentation Testing: Who Needs It and How Often?
If you use segmentation to shrink PCI scope, you have to prove it works: at least every 12 months under Requirement 11.4.5, and every six months for service providers under 11.4.6. A failed test can void the scope reduction your entire compliance budget assumes.
2026-08-22
What Does PCI DSS Compliance Actually Cost?
There is no published rate card for PCI, and the site that specialises in the question says so itself. What exists are seller-side ranges that disagree with each other by more than 2x on the same line item. The width is the finding.
2026-08-22
SAQ A Got Stricter by Getting Shorter
The Council removed three requirements from SAQ A and added an eligibility criterion in their place. Iframe merchants now have to confirm something before they may use the questionnaire at all. Redirect merchants do not.
2026-08-22
How to Reduce Your PCI DSS Scope
Four levers, in order of how much they remove: get card data out entirely, tokenize what you must keep, encrypt at the point of capture, and segment the remainder. The one that undoes all four is the back office nobody drew.
2026-08-22
How Long Does PCI DSS Compliance Take?
One published assessor timeline puts a first Report on Compliance at three to six months from scoping to signed report, and annual renewals at six to ten weeks. If you self-assess there is no fieldwork clock at all, only a remediation clock.
2026-08-19
Internal vs External Penetration Testing: Do You Need Both?
PCI DSS answers the question for anyone handling card data: both, every 12 months. For everyone else the honest answer is conditional, and a cloud-only company often gets more from a cloud assessment than from a classic internal test.
2026-08-16
Which PCI SAQ Do You Need? A Decision Guide
Your SAQ follows how card data touches your systems, not how big you are. The Council publishes several, each with its own eligibility criteria, and the boundary between the two most common ones is an engineering decision on your checkout page.
2026-08-16
Do You Need PCI Compliance If You Use Stripe or Shopify?
Yes. Stripe's own documentation says PCI compliance is a shared responsibility that applies to both Stripe and your business, and that you must attest annually. Using a processor shrinks the obligation; it does not transfer it.
2026-08-16
What Is a PCI ASV Scan, and What Happens If You Fail One?
An external scan by an Approved Scanning Vendor, tied to PCI DSS Requirement 11.3.2. A single finding can fail the whole scan, and failing is not the violation. Missing the quarter is.
2026-08-16
Merchant or Service Provider? The PCI AOC Your Customers Want
A merchant accepts cards for its own goods. A service provider handles or can affect the security of card data on someone else's behalf. Many SaaS companies are both, and sending the wrong attestation is how a vendor review stalls.
2026-08-16
Do You Need a QSA, or Can You Self-Assess for PCI DSS?
Most merchants can self-assess, and the entity that decides is your acquirer, not the Council and not a consultant. Get the answer in writing before you buy anything, including from us.
2026-07-28
How Often Should You Do Penetration Testing?
At least annually plus after significant changes is the floor across every major framework. Here is the exact requirement for PCI DSS 4.0.1, SOC 2, HIPAA, and CMMC, what counts as a significant change, and when annual is not enough.
2026-03-19
Penetration Testing: Beyond Checkbox Compliance
Automated scanners catch the low-hanging fruit, but real attackers chain business logic flaws, misconfigurations, and social engineering into full compromise. Here is how to scope, execute, and integrate penetration testing into your compliance program across SOC 2, PCI DSS, HIPAA, and CMMC.
2026-02-21
PCI DSS v4.0: The Complete Guide to Future-Dated Requirements
PCI DSS v4.0 introduced dozens of new requirements, many labeled 'best practice until March 31, 2025,' after which they became mandatory. If your organization processes, stores, or transmits cardholder data, these future-dated requirements are now enforceable. Here is what changed and how to prepare.