In the hospitality business, your aim is to make guests feel welcome. But there is one exception: hackers.

Hackers are unwelcome guests on your network. Here are some tips to keep them at bay.

ONE: TOKENISE CARD DATA

Tokenisation replaces sensitive card data with, you’ve guessed it, a token. This can be used across various front- and back-end systems instead of the real card data. If a hacker were to access your network, they would merely find random strings of numbers. This is no use for making payments and cannot be linked to real card numbers.

Many of our customers use our tokenisation service. We can also securely tokenise stored card numbers without completing a transaction.

TWO: ENCRYPT CARD DATA

Encryption ties hackers into a double bind, particularly when used together with tokenisation. Encryption scrambles sensitive data. If a hacker were to harvest encrypted data, they could not use it unless they had the decryption keys. We keep these safe in our secure data centre.

We offer a point to point encryption application centred around the POS device and the connection to PXP, as well as an end-to-end encryption solution. Customers usually choose one of these.

THREE: TRAIN STAFF

Your staff are your first line of defence against hackers, whether they strike in person (e.g. modifying or removing POS devices) or via the internet. Train your staff. Train them well. Keep training them. I’ve recently heard this described as: lather, rinse and repeat.

Making the training relevant to job role and to life outside work helps it to stick. Almost all your staff have a personal smartphone and use the internet. Tips on how to stay safe online, avoid phishing scams etc. are relevant to them personally as well as professionally.

FOUR: CHOOSE SECURITY OVER COMPLIANCE

Our first three tips offer practical examples of steps hoteliers can take to be more secure. However, there is no silver bullet to security — unfortunately. We advise adopting a matrix of measures so the protection afforded is greater than the sum of its parts.

PXP Financial

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Whatever your business needs today or tomorrow, PXP Financial’s innovative payment platform will support your business growth with all the payment services you will ever need from one source, wherever your business takes you.