Higher education may center on learning, but universities do a lot more than teach. They manage housing, dining, events, athletics, donations, and other activities, many of which involve payments. Because each payment touchpoint comes with security and compliance responsibilities, colleges and universities need to carefully manage where cardholder data is handled across campus.
Key Takeaways
- PCI scope includes the people, processes, technologies, and systems that handle cardholder data or can affect its security.
- Higher education institutions often have broad PCI scope because payments are spread across many systems and locations.
- Keeping raw cardholder data out of unnecessary campus systems is one of the most effective ways to reduce PCI scope.
- PCI-validated P2PE and tokenization can help protect or replace cardholder data so fewer systems need to handle it directly.
- Standardizing payment security and using semi-integrated payment architectures can help universities reduce complexity across payment environments.
- Reducing PCI scope can simplify compliance, lower security risk, and improve operational efficiency and scalability.
What Does PCI DSS Scope Mean in Higher Education?
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is the industry security standard for protecting payment card data. An institution’s PCI DSS scope is the part of its environment that must meet those requirements.
What Systems Fall Into PCI Scope?
PCI scope can include people, processes, technologies, and systems that store, process, or transmit cardholder data, as well as those that can affect its security. For a college or university, that can include tuition payments, campus stores, dining, athletics, donations, event registration, and other departments that accept cards.
Why Reducing PCI Scope Matters
By reducing PCI scope, higher education institutions can reduce the environment subject to PCI DSS requirements, making compliance less complex and costly.
Why PCI Scope is a Challenge for Higher Education Institutions
Because colleges and universities are complex communities with many departments operating relatively independently, PCI scope can expand quickly.
Universities Manage Hundreds of Payment Touchpoints
University payments happen almost everywhere on campus – and in many cases, off campus too. Tuition payments and donations may be taken through online portals, while an athletic event might sell tickets through a website, mobile app, and on-site kiosks. Other departments may also offer multiple ways to pay, each of which can add to the university’s PCI environment.
Decentralized Payment Environments Increase Complexity
In many colleges and universities, payment systems are not chosen or managed as part of one centralized strategy. When individual departments adopt their own systems, the institution can end up with a patchwork of payment technologies that makes it harder to keep unnecessary systems out of PCI scope.
Limited IT and Compliance Resources
Higher education IT and compliance teams often have to oversee complex environments, which can especially become difficult when responsibility is spread across many departments and payment channels.
What Expands PCI Scope?
Some systems and processes will naturally fall within PCI scope because they handle payment card data. But the size of that scope can vary depending on how payments are set up and how long data is retained.
Multiple Payment Vendors
Using multiple payment providers across different departments can require more connections and systems that can add complexity and security concerns.
Connected Campus Systems
Payment systems often connect with other campus technology, such as student information systems and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. If cardholder data flows into those systems, they too may fall under PCI scope.
Legacy Payment Processes
Manual or older payment methods, such as taking card details over the phone or using paper forms, can add additional systems and processes to PCI scope.
Storing Cardholder Data Unnecessarily
Keeping payment data after transactions can bring additional databases and other systems into the cardholder data environment (CDE), expanding PCI scope.
5 Ways to Reduce PCI Scope for Higher Education Institutions
Reducing PCI scope often comes down to limiting where cardholder data travels and how many systems need to handle it.
Eliminate Cardholder Data from Campus Systems
One of the most effective ways to reduce PCI scope is to keep raw cardholder data out of campus systems that do not need it. Avoid sending payment data into connected applications unless there is a clear business need. Where possible, use technologies such as encryption or tokenization so those systems can support payment-related workflows without handling the original card data.
Adopt PCI-Validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE)
PCI-validated P2PE protects payment card data by encrypting it as soon as a customer enters or taps their card and keeping it unreadable until it reaches a secure decryption environment. PCI-validated P2PE is a solution that has been independently assessed against the PCI Security Standards Council’s P2PE requirements and can significantly reduce the number of systems and processes included in PCI scope.
Use Tokenization
Tokenization replaces sensitive cardholder data with a non-sensitive substitute value called a token. Campus systems can keep systems out of PCI scope by using that token without storing or passing around the original card number.
Standardize Payment Security
By using the same payment security approach across departments and payment channels, universities can more easily control where cardholder data enters the environment and avoid a patchwork of systems with different security requirements.
Implement a Semi-Integrated Payment Architecture
In a semi-integrated payment setup, payment devices send card data directly to the payment provider for processing, instead of through a university’s point-of-sale or other business system. This keeps cardholder data separate from the campus applications used to manage the transaction and helps reduce PCI scope.
Benefits of Reducing PCI Scope
Managing payment security across a large university can require significant time and resources. Reducing PCI scope can help make that work less burdensome.
Simplify PCI DSS Compliance
To meet PCI DSS requirements, higher education institutions need to not only put required security controls in place, but also complete assessments, maintain documentation, and provide evidence of compliance. By reducing PCI scope, institutions can reduce that workload.
Lower Security Risks
Limiting where cardholder data is stored, processed, or transmitted reduces the number of places it can be exposed or compromised. It also gives security teams fewer systems and data flows to protect.
Improve Operational Efficiency
With fewer systems in scope, campus IT, security, and compliance teams can spend less time working to meet compliance requirements and focus on other university needs.
Scale Payments Across Campus
A payment environment designed to keep cardholder data out of campus systems can make it easier to scale without automatically expanding PCI scope.
How Bluefin Helps Higher Education Institutions Reduce PCI Scope
Bluefin brings payment security technologies together in an infrastructure designed to keep raw cardholder data out of more campus systems without requiring institutions to overhaul their payment environments.
Protect Payment Data at the Point of Interaction
Bluefin delivers PCI-validated P2PE as a service, so institutions can add this protection without building and managing the underlying encryption infrastructure themselves.
Replace Cardholder Data with Vaultless Tokenization
Unlike traditional vaulted tokenization, Bluefin’s ShieldConex® offers a vaultless approach that does not rely on a central database containing token-to-data relationships. That can make it easier to handle high transaction volumes without creating a central lookup bottleneck, while also removing a concentrated target for attackers.
Implement a Semi-Integrated Payment Architecture
Bluefin can help keep payment processing separate from campus business applications so raw cardholder data does not need to pass through those systems. Institutions can connect payment devices and applications with different processors, making it easier to standardize payment security while keeping existing systems in place.
Reduce PCI Scope Across Your Campus
The fewer places cardholder data touches, the easier it is to protect. Technologies like PCI-validated P2PE and vaultless tokenization can help colleges and universities keep raw card data out of more campus systems and make PCI DSS compliance less burdensome.
Learn how Bluefin helps colleges and universities reduce PCI scope with payment solutions designed for today’s campus environments.
How to Reduce PCI Scope FAQs
Does outsourcing payment processing eliminate PCI DSS compliance?
Using a third-party payment provider can reduce PCI scope, but it doesn’t eliminate it. The institution still has responsibilities for ensuring cardholder data is handled securely and for meeting applicable PCI DSS requirements.
Can online payment portals still be in PCI scope?
Yes. An online payment portal may be in PCI scope depending on how it handles cardholder data and how the payment process is configured. Redirecting payment data to a properly secured third-party environment can help reduce scope.
What is the difference between PCI scope and the cardholder data environment (CDE)?
The CDE includes the people, processes, and technologies that store, process, or transmit cardholder data or sensitive authentication data. PCI scope is broader and can also include systems that connect to or could affect the security of the CDE.
How often should higher education institutions review their PCI scope?
PCI DSS requires institutions to confirm their PCI scope at least once every 12 months and whenever significant changes are made to the in-scope environment.
Can tokenization reduce PCI DSS assessment requirements?
Yes. Properly implemented tokenization can keep cardholder data out of more systems, reducing PCI scope and potentially simplifying PCI DSS assessments.
What payment systems are typically included in a university’s PCI scope?
A university’s PCI scope may include point-of-sale systems, payment terminals, online portals, call-center payment processes, servers, networks, and other systems that handle cardholder data or can affect its security.
