Anyone new to a PCI DSS audit may feel daunted by the plethora of requirements and directives. Admittedly, achieving compliance is no easy task, and maintaining it can be challenging, too. As the threat landscape changes and technology evolves, so do the PCI standards. To date, revisions have been issued every few years— some minor, others with many changes.

However, PCI DSS is written to make compliance achievable, no matter the organization’s merchant level or expertise. Do your work in advance by following these steps, and you should have no trouble passing a PCI DSS audit and keeping your enterprise’s payment card transactions— and the business—running smoothly.