A developer's guide to complying with PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 6

I have written the following article for IBM which was published on IBM's DeveloperWorks

A developer's guide to complying with PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 6 (website)

A developer's guide to complying with PCI DSS 3.0 Requirement 6 (PDF)

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a highly prescriptive technical standard, which is aimed at the protection of debit and credit card details, which is referred to within the payments industry as cardholder data. The objective of the standard is to prevent payment card fraud, by securing cardholder data within organizations that either accept card payments, or are involved in the handling of cardholder data. PCI DSS consists of 12 sections of requirements, and usually responsibility for compliance rests with IT infrastructure support. PCI DSS requirement 6, however, breaks down into 28 individual requirements, and sits squarely with software developers involved in the development of applications that process, store, and transmit cardholder data. PCI compliance heavily revolves around IT services. IT focused compliance managers that are tasked with achieving compliance within organizations, often lack the required software developer knowledge and experience to help assure that the application development meets the arduous requirements of PCI DSS.

Xbox One & PS4 Gamer Security

From the very first moment gamers played online, their accounts have been targeted by hackers. But hacking gamer accounts is no longer just about revenge and community kudos. There is serious money to be made from stealing access to gamer accounts, ranging from selling virtual gaming items and gaming currency for real money, to stealing bank account & credit card details. It is a subject I have touched upon several times over the years:

How to keep your Final Fantasy XIV Online Account Safe & Secure
PlayStation Hack: PSN Gamers Security Help
Is Club Penguin Safe for my Child?
World of Warcraft: Does the Internet have controllable Borders?

Last year's launches of Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PS4 consoles, have swelled the number of online gamers into millions, so is gamer security a problem that is set to raise? 

Yes, and no, I think online console gaming security has improved in recent years, as Microsoft and Sony understand a secure online gaming network is an essential part of their billion pound business model. Poor online gaming availability and the loss of trust by the millions of gamers using their gaming consoles and services, equates to a significant loss of revenue, so their motivation for having a decent level of security to protect their gaming systems is clear to see.

There will always be cases of third party gaming websites that are breached, which result in gamer account details being compromised on mass. Website security is an issue that is not going to go away any time soon, regardless of the industry.

New gamers need to be continually educated about the third party risk to their accounts, as many assume there is none.  Gamers need to be aware of the various pitfalls enacted by scammers seeking access their valuable gaming accounts. The most common gaming account thefts occur due to phishing scams, trojan horse websites & forums, and dodgy third party game plug-ins.

MicroTrend has kindly provided the following "Ahead of the Game" InfoGraphic on gamer security, there's some big numbers in there.