AIMS attains global payment security compliance

By Digital News Asia December 23, 2014

Close to RM1mil invested in IT security to date
New Singapore facility in response to customer demand

AIMS attains global payment security compliance

CARRIER-neutral data services provider AIMS Group has achieved global compliance in payment security, adhering to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) Version 2.0.

PCI DSS is the technical requirement framework for payment data security compliance that is recognised by global payment brands such as American Express, VISA Inc, Mastercard, Discover Financial Services and JCB International to ensure the safe handling of cardholder information.

PCI DSS compliance is crucial for managing risks, reducing losses and ensuring customer data remains safe and is a requirement for all merchants and service providers that store, process or transmit cardholder data.

Businesses must adhere to vital security measures such as policies, security management, procedures, network architecture and software design.

This makes AIMS the third data centre in Malaysia to receive the global compliance recognition for payment security.

AIMS attains global payment security compliance Chiew Kok Hin (pic), chief executive officer of AIMS shared that this payment security qualification has long been in the works by the data centre, in consideration of the increasing trend of data breaches in the country.

He added that according to Bank Negara’s 2013 annual report, the volume of e-payment transactions comprising usage of payment cards, e-money and Internet banking totalled 1.9 billion transactions, valued at RM16.2 trillion (US$4.62 trillion).

“At the same time, credit card fraud was the most common form of payment fraud with total losses amounting to RM29.4 million (US$8.44 million), with almost 62% of this amount being due to unauthorised Internet transactions.

“This shows that more needs to be done to prevent leaks occurring from the financial aspect of our digital economy,” said Chiew.

AIMS has invested close to RM1 million (US$286,794) in fortifying the overall IT security of its data centre facilities to date.

Chiew added that getting PCI DSS is not a one off initiative but part of a long-term commitment to ensure that AIMS customers have even more faith in its data centre facilities, systems and processes.

“Data breaches are becoming more sophisticated by the day and AIMS is especially concerned about payment security as this is where data breaches are more common place,” he said.

A sizeable number of data centre clients are made up of those from the financial and e-commerce industries and while AIMS does not directly manage consumers financial data, it is a huge concern to them, Chiew shared.

"Hence to protect AIMS data centre clients, we went a step deeper and made the decision to invest in efforts to adopt global standards in data security measures designed to protect cardholder data,” he added.

AIMS operates multiple data centre facilities, with its main data centre in central Kuala Lumpur in addition to sites in Cyberjaya, Sabah, Penang, Johor and now in Singapore.

The decision to set up operations in Singapore recently, was in response to demand from customers for a site within the island-nation.

“There was a demand from some of our existing customers for a site in Singapore and seeing the need, we have set up a site in Singapore. This speaks volumes of our reliability and credibility overseas as well,” Chiew said.