What is PCI?
Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, or PCI, refers to coronary angioplasty and other interventions, such as stenting, in which interventional cardiologists perform therapeutic medical procedures within the arteries. PCI is less invasive than open heart surgeries, such as cardiac bypass surgery (CABG).
The term PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. When PCI is referred to, it is actually referencing the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). It was developed by the major credit card companies as a guideline to help organizations that store, process or transmit cardholder data in to prevent credit card fraud, cracking and various other security vulnerabilities and threats. A company processing, storing, or transmitting payment card data must be PCI DSS compliant or risk losing their ability to process credit card payments and being audited and/or fined. The current version of the standard (1.1) specifies 12 requirements for compliance, organized into six related groups, which are called “control objectives.
PCI (Payment Card Industry) refers to a data security standard that Visa and MasterCard established in order to create common industry security requirements. It regulates the: • Building and maintaining a secure network. • Protecting cardholder data. • Maintaining a vulnerability management program. • Implementing strong access control measures. • Regular monitoring and testing networks. • Maintaining an information security program.
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of requirements designed to ensure that ALL companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. Essentially any merchant that has a Merchant ID (MID). The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) was launched on September 7, 2006 to manage the ongoing evolution of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) security standards with focus on improving payment account security throughout the transaction process. The PCI DSS is administered and managed by the PCI SSC (www.pcisecuritystandards.org), an independent body that was created by the major payment card brands (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB.). It is important to note, the payment brands and acquirers are responsible for enforcing compliance, not the PCI council. A copy of the PCI DSS is available here.
PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) is a computer bus used for attaching peripheral devices to a computer motherboard. It is the most popular local I/O bus used in today. PCI provides a shared data path between the CPU and peripheral controllers in every computer models, from laptops to mainframes. Developed by the Intel Corporation, PCI first appeared in computers in 1993 and co-existed with the ISA bus for several years. It soon displaced the ISA and VESA local bus and became the standard expansion bus used in PCs. Today, most computers have only PCI slots and one AGP slot for a display adapter.
