Ingrian Administers Pain-Free PCI Compliance For Hotel Bookings Engine

22/10/2007

Online Hotel Booking Company Invests In Industry Leading Encryption Technology To Secure Thousands Of Records Per Second

London, UK ' April 24th, 2007 ' Ingrian Networks Inc., the leading provider of data privacy solutions, today announced that itís advanced appliance-based encryption capabilities have resulted in Conferma, the online corporate hotel booking tool for travel agents, achieving PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance well ahead of the June 30th deadline. The Ingrian appliances are helping the company to encrypt and secure up to 100,000 data entries per day.

Steve Hoy, IT Manager at Conferma, states, "In order to meet the PCI requirements, we have to ensure that customer credit card data is encrypted so that if any data were to be compromised it would be rendered useless to the criminal. This element of PCI DSS was causing us the biggest headache and Ingrian provided the technology and advice we needed to make sure we could implement strong data security in minimal time."

"The Ingrian solution not only allows us to encrypt card data, but other sensitive data also, such as customer passwords. With dual-key management we can also control access to stored data based on eligibility and peer authorisation. The ability to log all access and create an effective audit trail is key to achieving PCI compliance comfortably, and the Ingrian appliances enable effective logging of who accessed what and when."

The Ingrian appliances are being used to secure the sensitive customer data collected through the Conferma Corporate Hotel Booking platform, a recently launched service that is anticipated to see vastly increased demand from travel agents arranging important business travel accommodation. Two Ingrian i311 DataSecure Platforms, each capable of performing up to 35,000 cryptographic operations per second, are enabling Conferma to successfully meet and exceed strict compliance requirements that call for merchants to mitigate fraud by encrypting cardholder data and securely storing and managing cryptographic keys. One i311 DataSecure Platform is encrypting the data collectedon a daily basis by Conferma while the second appliance provides redundancy, ensuring that continuous encryption is possible.

"There is a myth surrounding encryption that it is laborious and disruptive to implement. This deployment dispels that myth and is evidence of the advancements that have been made in the technology,î said Jon Shaw, EMEA Sales Manager at Ingrian. ìBy acting fast in achieving PCI compliance, Conferma has not only ensured that its customers can use its services safely, but are avoiding a frantic push to meet the June deadline and can direct efforts towards business development instead."

Currently being used on the Conferma Corporate Hotel Booking platform, the Ingrian devices will soon help to secure credit card and customer data for its CSP (Conferma Settlement Plan) bill-back system, which will allow travel agents to handle hotel bills on behalf of their corporate clients using centrally billed card based accounts.