Credit Card Worries/ Mercury Payment System

Posted by Lisa on February 14, 2006, 10:15 pm

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Wanting to setup RMS were credit cards are processed through internet and
possibly Mercury Payment System.

My two personal computer gurus (not POS gurus) are scared to death about the
liability of doing credit cards over the internet. They are worried about
them being stolen while "encrypted on the way to the bank even if they are
not stored on the computer".

POS gurus what is my liability and what do I need to do security wise to
keep that liability low but security cost not too high?

Thanks for all your help so far!! This is such a great forum with many
helpful and insightful people!!

Posted by Jeff on February 14, 2006, 11:11 pm

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Lisa,

The credit card number leaves your computer encrypted, on a secure link, to
a secure site, direct to the credit card processor. While not _completely_
fool proof, its _really_ pretty good. There are millions, if not billions
of credit card authorizations made over the Internet every day.

On your end, at minimum, you need to protect all customer information. That
means having installed an anti-virus program, anti-spyware program and a
firewall to prevent in/out bound communications via the Internet, protecting
_each_ machine in the store.

It should be a _real_ firewall, not just a NAT device. Software or hardware
or both.

Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, AVG and many others make software firewalls.

Sonicwall, NetGear, D-Link, Netopia, WatchGuard, Symantec, Check Point
Software Technologies and many others make hardware firewalls.

Some hardware firewalls can include the anti-virus/spyware, as an option,
for a yearly fee.
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Wanting to setup RMS were credit cards are processed through internet and
possibly Mercury Payment System.

My two personal computer gurus (not POS gurus) are scared to death about the
liability of doing credit cards over the internet. They are worried about
them being stolen while "encrypted on the way to the bank even if they are
not stored on the computer".

POS gurus what is my liability and what do I need to do security wise to
keep that liability low but security cost not too high?

Thanks for all your help so far!! This is such a great forum with many
helpful and insightful people!!