by Ben Dwyer Since 2010, when Total System Services, Inc. (also known as TSYS) purchased a majority stake in First National Bank of Omaha’s merchant acquisition business, the company has been a significant player in the credit card payment processing industry. It’s one of the largest processors in the world, and offers a full range of services.
Note: Following TSYS’s acquisition by Global Payments, the Guardian Security Suite no longer appears to be available under that name. We’re leaving this article here for historical purposes, but it will no longer be updated. Any security services offered by Global will be covered in their own articles. Looking for something specific? Give us a call!
TSYS has rolled out a chain of products for retail merchants the past several years: including its EMV card acceptance, encryption, and tokenization services. All have been warmly received by businesses and have helped TSYS build a solid reputation as a responsive and efficient way for budget minded retailers to achieve and maintain high levels of secure credit card transactions for both online and in person purchases.
So it comes as no surprise that not long ago, the company bundled many of these now legacy features, together with some new or upgraded services, to create its Guardian Security Suite. As credit cards grow in popularity, it’s more important than ever to ensure your systems are secure. To that end, let’s look at what the powerful Guardian Security Suite can offer your business.
- What is Guardian Security Suite?
- Who needs TSYS’ Guardian Security Suite?
- Security Beyond EMV
- Costs and Quotes for Processing
What is Guardian Security Suite?
The TSYS Guardian Security Suite is a series of tools that offers protection against hacks and their associated costs. These include:
PCI Validation
Validating and maintaining compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) helps your business implement and verify basic security standards required for card acceptance. These standards establish proven security practices for your business and provide a layer of defense against data theft.
Encryption and Tokenization
End-to-end encryption adds a layer of security to your card acceptance. It does so by encrypting card numbers at the point of sale, rendering them useless to hackers and other cyber thieves. The service also includes the company’s current tokenization process which moves customer data from your database to TSYS’ and replaces it with a token number which means nothing to data thieves, producing an even stronger level of data security.
Chip-Capable Credit Card POS Machines
TSYS’ chip-enabled credit card machines offer the highest available POS device security levels. According to Visa, nearly 40 percent of its U.S. credit and debit cards now have EMV chips. It is safe to assume that the other card issuers have – or will soon have – similar levels of EMV cards.
Card Compromise Assistance Plan (C-CAP)
The Card Compromise Assistance Plan is essentially security/data breach insurance. C-CAP offers retailers the financial assistance of up to $100,000 per-merchant to cover post-breach expenses. The Card Compromise Assistance Plan is also available separately from the Guardian Security Suite. For more details, see TSYS Card Compromise Assistance Plan.
Who needs TSYS’ Guardian Security Suite?
Any business can benefit from added security like the Guardian suite. It may be particularly helpful for smaller businesses.
The PCI DSS council recently released some research that reveals that more than 80 percent of retail data breaches happen to businesses who least can afford them – the small businesses with their thinner profit margins.
The council has also found the costs of security breaches are quite high. Breached businesses must pay for a forensic audit, plus the cost of any fines if the audit reveals any PSS violations, in addition to replacing customer credit cards whose data may have been stolen. The median costs for all of this often ranges from $20,000 to $50,000 for small businesses. This amount often proves too much for small companies and can lead to business closures.
Add to these facts that in the last seven years, businesses lost close to $9 billion due to fraud. It’s little wonder that a single data breach can cost a retail merchant – especially a smaller one – their business.
Security Beyond EMV
The long-awaited chip credit cards are beginning to reduce fraud, according to Visa. Losses from counterfeit cards at locations accepting Visa EMV chip cards was down 26% from January 2015 to January 2016, and Visa adds that some businesses are seeing even larger decreases.
But that’s only one branch of credit card security vulnerability. It’s not known how many businesses might be lulled into a false sense of security by viewing EMV as a silver bullet to security issues. The growing number of bundled payment and data security products (like the Guardian Security Suite) warrants consideration by any business serious about security.
Costs and Quotes for Processing
If you’re interested in using the TSYS Guardian Security Suite, sign up at CardFellow. Our quote request tool gives you full cost breakdowns for any processor you’d like, including TSYS. You’ll be able to take advantage of security solutions through processors – including TSYS’ Guardian Security Suite.
TSYS includes the cost of the Guardian Security Suite in the fully disclosed quotes it places through CardFellow. Additionally, for clients that take advantage of Guardian, there is no PCI non-compliance fee.
To get a fair, unbiased, and competitive cost comparison, our free quote comparison tool provides private quotes in just a few minutes.
