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Letter from the editors

f you are active in the payments industry and
travel to attend tradeshows or meet with out-of-
town clients, there's a chance you've booked a
I room through the Marriott hotel chain's Starwood
reservation system. The fact that hackers gained access
to the Starwood database in 2014 was discovered last
week, and the personally identifiable information of
up to 500 million guests was exposed, hotel representa- Time is
tives stated.

As always with such massive intrusions, more details running out
will emerge. However, the true impact of this slow-
burning incident may never be fully quantified. And
that makes the topic of this issue's lead article especially
pertinent. We've taken a fresh look at the PCI Security
Standards Council (PCI SSC), founded in 2006 to man-
age the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
(PCI DSS), which was established in 2004 to perpetuate
security best practices across the payments ecosystem.

A Herculean task then ‒ and now. Criminals are relent-
lessly assaulting our payment systems. With every in-
novation in technology, come advancements in how to
hack it. However, the PCI SSC and the professionals the
organization works with worldwide are also relentless
in safeguarding our way of life. The Green Sheet was
buoyed by the experts interviewed for this article, who
are fully committed to improving upon and promulgat-
ing the PCI security standards to keep our data safe.

The writers featured in this issue are also committed Call Danielle NOW
to industry best practices. We hope you relish their dif-
ferent views on cash advance and surcharge programs, to lock in 2018
when and how to prepare to sell a merchant portfolio, advertising rates
Arizona's new regulatory "sandbox" program for fin-
techs, the need to act with urgency and purpose, and for 2019.
why innovation is key to the survival of small and mid-
size retailers and what you can do to help.

Given the time of year, we've posted news stories with Customized advertising campaigns
preliminary data on sales online and offline since Black to fit any size company and budget.
Friday, which traditionally has marked the start of the Bundle advertisng campaign discounts*
year-end holiday season. This is in addition to stories
on increased fraud attempts over the holidays, mer-
chant concerns about card-not-present fraud, mobile
app vulnerability, healthy growth in electronic pay- Danielle Thorpe
ments, partnering to bring point-to-point encryption
to higher education, and more. We've also included the AVP Media Partnerships
profiles, inspiration and items about recent milestones
celebrated in the payments community. 707-284-1686

We hope you have great success this holiday season
and that you'll tell us about it at greensheet@greensheet.
com. And please keep sending your press releases to Your bottom line will thank you.
press@greensheet.com.

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