Data encryption is a significant component of an organization’s response to emerging security threats and regulatory compliance mandates. Most of the organizations have already implemented controls by encrypting data, but find that managing the associated encryption keys throughout their lifecycle quickly becomes a problem.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was created by the major credit card companies to serve as a guide for merchants who save, process, and transmit credit card data towards initiating more sophisticated security measures.

This is the first article of in our comprehensive series introducing Hardware Security Modules (HSM). We understand that some of these concepts can be difficult to grasp all in one read. So for this introduction, we don’t quite intend to break the ice, but only aim to scratch the surface on the topic of cryptographic module security standards.