Society of Payment Security Professionals - Payment Security Blog

Asia-Pacific markets gain PCI momentum

I just finished a two week training tour in Australia, Japan, and Korea. It is a very interesting market with people asking lots of questions about PCI DSS compliance. The Asia-Pacific region has been active with Visa pushing for compliance of service providers for the past three years. This year there is a significant push to get increase merchant compliance within the three major markets: Australia, Japan, and Korea.

These countries do not see as much fraud as in the United States, but that could change as companies in other global regions begin to secure their systems in the wake of the TJX compromise.

Australia is really taking hold as major merchants see PCI as a deterrent for credit card fraud.  The networks for credit card transactions within Japan and Korea has shielded them from domestic credit card fraud but international fraud is still a potential issue.  To prevent this they are taking PCI seriously and starting projects that will position them in a compliant manner within the next 1-2 years.

This creates a kind of competition because once one company secures their systems to comply with PCI the hackers will move on to other less secure companies.  You see this in all regions where hackers are implementing more advanced methods of attack in fewer (non-compliant and non-secure) merchants and service providers.

Also, much like the European market much of the fraud is e-commerce based with much of that being the fraudulent use of international (or cross border) credit cards.  One particular story from a merchant told of hackers using stolen credit cards to buy e-gold (or virtual-money) within online games and then selling it at a discount to other gamers.  This is how they monetize the stolen credit cards.

This may seem like small potatoes, but remember that South Korean based ICM is the organizer for the international World Cyber Games (WCG) where gamers from around the world compete for the world championship title and over $400k in cash! There are kids that practice day and night for the chance to be the best gamer in the world.

You can expect a surge in compliance levels within the Asia-Pacific over the next few years.