PCI-DSS Compliance or an Insurance for the Card Companies

Is PCI-DSS enough to ensure security of personnel data. Is it the minimum required to protect user information. But the way the standard has been prescribed, it looks more like a system designed to transfer the incidence from the card issuing organization to the organization handling information for the card issuers.

If the controls are adequate, why are there breaches. Is the system designed to protect the end user sufficient and complete enough to warrant a certification. What does the certification achieve. If you look at the issues in hand, it is clear that the problem is not with the organization handling the data but the protection afforded by such systems to personnel information.

Is it not that the card industry to protect itself have an publicly available standard that has gone through peer reviews and public scrutiny imposed on organizations which process credit/debit card information inadequate?

The balance between what is prescribed in the standard and what is required to achieve a level of security commensurate with the sensitivity of the data in mind, looks more designed to transfer the incidence of breach to the online vendor rather than the card companies. By doing this the card companies can mandate and prescribe a set of standards and certify them " as ready to process personnel information" but the onus of actually protecting the data is with the online trader or shop.

This is not to belittle the standard, but to ensure that a standard is more complete and instead of pushing the incidence and address the security question in earnest

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