Mapping PCI DSS v4.0 to Real Attack Paths: How Modern Breaches Exploit Payment Environments
Mapping PCI DSS v4.0 to Real Attack Paths PCI DSS is designed to protect payment account data, but security teams should not look at the standard only as a checklist of individual requirements. Modern attackers rarely follow a checklist. They follow attack paths. An attacker may begin with a phishing email, compromised credential, vulnerable web application, exposed API, or misconfigured cloud resource. From there, the attacker can move through identities, systems, applications, databases, and payment environments until they reach valuable data. This is why mapping PCI DSS v4.0 controls to real attack paths can provide a more practical way to understand payment security. PCI DSS provides baseline technical and operational requirements for entities that store, process, or transmit payment account data, as well as organizations that can affect the security of the cardholder data environment (CDE). PCI DSS v4.0 also introduced greater flexibility, including targeted risk analysis ...