Merchants had until March 31, 2024 before they could longer be able to validate their compliance using version 3.2.1 of the SAQs.
Merchants will need to start validating with version 4.0.1 and should start now to implement any missing controls, especially those future-dated requirements, which need to be in place by March 31, 2025.
Something to be aware of is that almost every question in the PCI v4 SAQ was re-worded and re-ordered, meaning that filling out the SAQ may take more time. Since all of the questions have been reworded, it means that EVERY merchant will need to answer additional questions, even if nothing in their network has changed.
To help mitigate this, our very best support agents worked together, combing through the 3.2.1 and the 4 SAQs to find as many questions as possible that would map over. By using SecurityMetrics' FastPass, merchants could reduce the amount of questions they'd need to answer by a significant amount.
Unfortunately, this may cause some frustration for your merchants.
Additionally for SAQ A merchants, vulnerability scanning is now a requirement, whereas previously it wasn't. For a merchant that has never needed to scan previously, this new requirement could cause some frustration because they may not know how to set up a scan and they likely will fail their scan the first time around.
However, the SecurityMetrics' support team is ready 24/7 and able to answer the phone within 15 seconds to aid your merchants with any questions they may have about the new scanning requirements or PCI DSS v.4.0.1.
New PCI DSS v4.0.1 requirements (e.g., requirement 6.4.3 and 11.6.1) requires SAQ A, SAQ A-EP, SAQ D merchants, and SAQ D service providers to implement change detection procedures and technologies to alert personnel to unauthorized modifications to the HTTP headers and contents of the page(s) used to house the TPSP iframe. Such tamper-detection mechanisms must run at least weekly to look for unauthorized modifications to these critical web pages.
The SecurityMetrics Shopping Cart Monitor can be used to help meet the intent of these requirements.
The release of the new 4 version may cause anxiety for those already familiar with the current PCI DSS requirements. Rest assured that the 12 core PCI DSS requirements remain fundamentally the same; version 4 is not a totally new standard.
However, PCI DSS v4.0 introduced 64 new requirements (11 of which are only applicable to service providers). Most of these new requirements are future-dated to March 31, 2025, with notable exceptions being requirements around documentation and performing a targeted risk analysis. To find out more about specific requirement updates, check out this resource. There were also significant changes to the wording of questions.
To find out about more of the fundamental changes within PCI DSS v4.0.1, read our white paper PCI DSS Version 4.0.1: What You Need to Know.
Our support team works with the SAQs, and they’ve already mapped the new questions to existing questions so that when a merchant has to flip over to PCI v4.0, they don't have to re-fill out the whole entire SAQ.
Taking all the information they currently have, and pre-loading it into the SAQ, so that they may only have a few more to answer. This will simplify the experience for the merchants. We want to help you keep your merchants happy, which is why we try to make the merchant experience as straightforward as possible.
We also have a variety of security and compliance products for merchants from level one to level four.
For example, the SecurityMetrics Shopping Cart Monitor can be used to help meet the intent of the new requirements 6.4.3 and 11.6.1.
SecurityMetrics has produced a number of educational materials about PCI DSS version 4 that you can point your merchants back to. We’ll also continue creating content to help educate your merchants on what requirements they should focus on and how to best achieve compliance with PCI DSS version 4.0.1.
We’re here to help you and your merchants, so feel free to reach out to us with any questions!
The following are related resources that we have prepared for you. Find more answers to your questions in our Learning Center.
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