Assignment: Preparing for a PCI-DSS audit

Outcomes addressed in this activity:

Unit Outcomes:

• Examine an audit process.
• Apply a checklist to prepare for an audit in a real-world scenario.

Course Outcome:

IT591-3: Apply auditing processes within a technical scenario.

Purpose

This assignment helps you learn how to prepare for a specific audit, in this case the PCI-DSS audit. You will use the PCI-DSS Checklist and become familiar with the various sections that the audit will cover, and what preparation must occur to ensure compliance within each section.

Assignment Instructions

Research the Internet for the PCI-DSS self-assessment questionnaire (SQA-D) and use this for the assignment.

Consider the PCI-DSS self-assessment questionnaire (SQA-D) which a typical retail merchant would have to show compliance in order to continue doing business for credit cards.

1. Review the questions associated with four different sections of the 12 covered by the assessment questions (specifically sections 3, 8, 9, and one other section of your choice)
2. For each section explain:
   • The purpose of that section, why it is important, and what these questions seek to achieve.
   • Pick any three questions in that section and explain: 
     • What the question means
     • What evidence would be needed to show compliance
     • Whether it would be easy or difficult to achieve compliance and why
   • Do not pick three that are all easy
   • Summarize your impressions of the questions for this section and discuss how a merchant would establish or maintain compliance
3. For any question that you examined in item 2 above, (which was deemed hard to comply with) assume that you cannot fully meet the requirement and draft up a half-page compensating control that would substitute for a fully compliant response.

Lastly, write a 1-paragraph summary about what you learned from this exercise.