PCI London 2013: Cardholder Data Discovery Critical to Mitigating a Data Breach

LONDON, June 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 2, merchants, payment service providers, and card schemes will convene for the PCI London 2013 regional forum to discuss the latest strategies for protecting customer cardholder data and meeting PCI DSS compliance requirements.

A 2013 Ponemon Institute study recently reported the 2012 average cost per compromised record in the United Kingdom has reached £86, up from £79 in 2011. This evidence combined with increasing fines of up to £500,000 being levied by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for serious breaches of the Data Protection Act has put many organisations on notice and created additional pressure on business stakeholders to address these evolving risks.

Ground Labs, a prominent developer of data security and auditing software, will be presenting at the forum as part of the company's efforts to educate UK businesses. Ground Labs advocates for getting back to basics in identifying what needs to be secured before making critical decisions about how to secure it. The company believes this approach is more effective than the current trend in which organisations are bypassing these fundamental steps in favour of adopting expensive and complex data security solutions that may be inadequate.

"Criminals are opportunistic in nature and will always look for high value sensitive data to steal which most commonly includes cardholder data," explains Mohamed Zouine, Director of EMEA Corporate Development for Ground Labs. "It is of great concern that many UK organisations still ignore critical security processes, such as identifying the storage location of all Personally Identifiable Information (PII)."

Cardholder data is commonly stored without any encryption in electronic documents, yet most organisations are unaware of where the data is being stored, and therefore unprepared to manage the security risks. A 2012 Ground Labs survey of more than 100 UK businesses revealed stored credit card data that was unbeknown to management. In fact, Ground Labs' auditing software identified more than 20 million credit card numbers on the network of a single company that mistakenly believed it did not have any cardholder data. In a similar case within a large multinational firm, more than 100 million customer payment card numbers were identified.

"We hold in high regard the companies making data security a priority," says Mr. Zouine. "PCI London is the ideal forum to educate organisations about PCI compliance errors related to cardholder data storage practices and demonstrate practical, cost-saving strategies that can enable organisations to maintain full PCI compliance with less resources."

Sky, a communications provider with 10.6 million customers across the UK and Ireland, is one of many prominent companies using Ground Labs' Enterprise Recon to protect consumers' cardholder data. On a global level, more than 2,500 other organisations across 80+ countries have also improved their PCI compliance using Ground Labs products.

The PCI London event brings together senior decision-makers and PCI compliance experts who are responsible for protecting their customers' cardholder data across the UK. It is scheduled to be held on July 2, 2013 at the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel in London and is expected to attract over 400 attendees.

Executives from QVC UK, Visa Europe, John Lewis and other leading organisations in the payment card industry will offer presentations throughout the event. In addition, Ground Labs' EMEA Director, Mohamed Zouine, will present an educational session on cardholder data discovery insights titled "Addressing PCI Requirement 0 : finding cardholder data. The what, where & how answered".

UK-based merchants are invited to attend PCI London at no charge. Seats are limited and online registration must be submitted at www.pci-portal.com/event/pcilondonuk13july/

About Ground Labs

Ground Labs is a global leader in the development of security and auditing software solutions for the payment card industry. Its flagship products, Card Recon and Enterprise Recon, are used to perform cardholder data discovery on computer systems worldwide, helping companies prevent security breaches that result in the theft of customers' credit and debit card numbers. With offices in London, Singapore and Seattle, more than 2,500 customers rely upon Ground Labs products across 80+ countries. For information and product demos, visit www.groundlabs.com and for the latest data discovery insights visit www.groundlabs.com/blog/.

For more information, please contact:

Mohamed Zouine
+44-203-137-9898
www.groundlabs.com/contact

SOURCE Ground Labs