Relationship between PCI DSS and PA-DSS

 

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Use of a Payment Application Data Security Standard (PA-DSS) compliant application by itself does not make an entity PCI DSS compliant, since that application must be implemented into a PCI DSS compliant environment and according to the PA-DSS Implementation Guide provided by the payment application vendor.

All applications that store, process, or transmit cardholder data are in scope for an entity’s PCI DSS assessment, including applications that have been validated to PA-DSS. The PCI DSS assessment should verify the PA-DSS validated payment application is properly configured and securely implemented per PCI DSS requirements. If the payment application has undergone any customization, a more in-depth review will be required during the PCI DSS assessment, as the application may no longer be representative of the version that was validated to PA-DSS.

The PA-DSS requirements are derived from the PCI DSS Requirements and Security Assessment Procedures (defined in this document). The PA-DSS details the requirements a payment application must meet in order to facilitate a customer’s PCI DSS compliance.

Secure payment applications, when implemented in a PCI DSS-compliant environment, will minimize the potential for security breaches leading to compromises of PAN, full track data, card verification codes and values (CAV2, CID, CVC2, CVV2), and PINs and PIN blocks, along with the damaging fraud resulting from these breaches.

To determine whether PA-DSS applies to a given payment application, please refer to the PA-DSS Program Guide, which can be found at www.pcisecuritystandards.org.

Applicability of PCI DSS to Payment Application Vendors

PCI DSS may apply to payment application vendors if the vendor stores, processes, or transmits cardholder data, or has access to their customers’ cardholder data (for example, in the role of a service provider).

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