Maintaining Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliance in the Cloud

摘要

Protecting privacy is a major concern of people using the internet. Purchasing items online inevitably builds up profiles within databases. Ensuring that this data remains protected is vital if society is to continue to trust electronic avenues of purchasing. Having credit card information leaked or hacked is of serious concern. PCI Compliance attempts to protect individual users from such situations. With Cloud architectures still relatively new, can customers still be guaranteed protection? This paper will endeavour to research this area and determine if procedures exist in the Cloud that can adhere to and implement PCI Compliance adequately. The PCI standard is primarily concerned with protecting the details of a credit card, which while perfectly acceptable, it does not take into consideration any other factors. Therefore, if the compliance is to be maintained in a Cloud environment where other vulnerabilities exist, can it still be successful? This essay will explore these questions and provide some insights.