Generate New Credit Card Keys

PCI DSS Overview | Audit Log

This information applies to users of the QuickBooks POS Merchant Service and the requirements for complying with the Payment Card Industry's Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Point of Sale encrypts the cardholder data stored in your company data with encryption keys using an industry-standard, strong, encryption process that meets current Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) requirements. Point of Sale automatically generates new encryption keys at least once per year. No action is required on your part to enable this security feature.

Additional information about the encryption keys is provided in the PCI DSS Implementation Guide . To access this electronic manual, select User Guides from the Help menu.

If you suspect a security breach or that an unauthorized attempt to access the data was made, one of the steps you should take is to generate new encryption keys. The new keys are used to encrypt all new transactions. In addition, stored transactions are re-encrypted with the new keys. The previous keys are destroyed and are unrecoverable.

To manually generate new encryption keys:

1. Log in to Point of Sale as the System Administrator.

2. From the Point of Sale File menu, select Utilities.

3. Select Generate New Credit Card Keys.

A confirmation message is displayed upon successful update of the stored card transactions.

4. Log off the Sysadmin user.

Note:

- The encrypted cardholder data stored in your company file is not accessible to any Point of Sale user; even the Point of Sale system administrator is blocked from viewing this information. Cardholder data is also not available on Point of Sale reports and cannot be included in data exports.

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Credit card fraud prevention tips