Ensuring PCI DSS Compliance for Your Website

You process payments on your site and must comply with PCI DSS. Fines for card data breaches can reach millions of rubles, and Visa may disable your acquiring. We help online stores and services achieve certification in 5–30 days depending on the level. According to research, about 70% of companies choose SAQ A as the simplest compliance method, requiring 15 times fewer requirements than SAQ D — only 22 items vs. 300+. However, you need to properly configure the payment integration and infrastructure. With us, you avoid typical mistakes: storing CVV, weak SSL ciphers, lack of network segmentation. Below we break down how to ensure payment data protection and pass the audit without unnecessary costs.

Which PCI DSS Level Fits Your Website?

PCI DSS divides organizations into four levels based on transaction volume. The higher the level, the stricter the requirements.

Note: SAQ (Self-Assessment Questionnaire) — a self-assessment questionnaire. Its type depends on how card data is processed.

The PCI Security Standards Council states: "PCI DSS is a set of security standards designed to ensure that ALL companies that accept, process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment."

How to Protect Card Data Without Server-Side Processing?

The simplest path is to offload payment processing to a provider. Use Stripe Elements, Cloudpayments, or YooKassa with iframe. Then card data never reaches your server, and you can fill out SAQ A — only 22 items. Tokenization is 5 times cheaper than storing card data on your own server.

<div id="card-element"></div>
<script src="https://js.stripe.com/v3/"></script>
<script>
const stripe = Stripe('pk_live_...');
const elements = stripe.elements();
const card = elements.create('card');
card.mount('#card-element');
const { paymentMethod } = await stripe.createPaymentMethod({
    type: 'card',
    card: card,
});
// Send paymentMethod.id to server — no card data
</script>

SAQ A requirements include: HTTPS on all pages, up-to-date SSL/TLS configuration (Requirement 4.1), prohibition of card data storage, quarterly ASV scanning, and a security policy.

How to Protect Data During Transmission and Storage?

If card data passes through your server (e.g., for recurring payments), SAQ D applies — over 300 items. We recommend avoiding this situation. Compare: migrating to tokenization reduces security costs by 5 times, and audit time from 3 months to 2 weeks.

Encryption in Transit (Requirement 4)

Use TLS 1.2 or 1.3 with strong ciphers. TLS 1.0 and 1.1 are no longer accepted.

ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
ssl_ciphers 'ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384';
ssl_prefer_server_ciphers off;

Data Storage (Requirement 3)

Store only the last 4 digits of PAN and BIN (first 6). Full PAN, CVV2, PIN, and magnetic stripe track are prohibited. PAN masking and truncation are required per PCI DSS version 3.2.1.

How We Ensure Compliance

We have completed over 50 projects bringing websites to PCI DSS compliance, with a proven track record of guaranteed certification. Typical scenario:

1. Audit current state — determine level and gaps (e.g., missing network segmentation).
2. Tokenization — migrate processing to iframe solution (Stripe, YooKassa).
3. Security hardening — HTTPS, WAF, network segmentation (VLANs).
4. ASV scanning — through an accredited vendor (quarterly).
5. SAQ completion — help with questions and documentation.

Example case: an electronics online store with 300,000 orders per year. Initially — SAQ D, fines from Visa due to a breach. We implemented Stripe, configured SSL and WAF, moved to SAQ A. Security costs decreased by 5 times, audit time from 3 months to 2 weeks.

Work Process: From Audit to Certification

• Analysis — network, code, and configuration audit (including PCI DSS Requirement 11.3).
• Design — choose scheme (SAQ A vs D), migration plan.
• Implementation — configure HTTPS, tokenization, segmentation.
• Testing — ASV scanning, penetration test (Requirement 11.4).
• Documentation — policies, procedures, SAQ.
• Deployment — handover documentation to the bank.

What's Included (Deliverables)

• Detailed audit report with vulnerability identification.
• Configured HTTPS/TLS for all domains.
• Integrated payment system with tokenization.
• Completed SAQ with instructions.
• Regular ASV scanning (quarterly) via an approved scanning vendor.
• Information security policy for PCI DSS (Requirement 12).
• Consultations on request for 6 months after implementation.

Timelines and Cost

• SAQ A (tokenization + basic hardening) — from 5 to 10 business days. Typical project cost starts from 300,000 rubles, with clients saving up to 80% compared to full SAQ D audits.
• SAQ D (full scope) — from 3 to 6 months with QSA involvement. Cost is individually calculated.
• Contact us for a preliminary assessment of your project — we will prepare a commercial proposal. Order end-to-end PCI DSS implementation turnkey.

For common questions, see our FAQ below.

Web Application Security: HTTPS, CSP, XSS, CSRF, WAF, DDoS Protection

A website breach rarely looks like in movies. More often it's: a bot finds an unprotected /admin/export endpoint, downloads the customer database, and closes the connection. Or: through an outdated WordPress plugin, a web shell is uploaded, and the server starts sending spam. Or quieter: an XSS in a comment field allows stealing admin session cookies, unnoticed for months. We have analyzed dozens of such cases — each vulnerability could have been fixed at the development or audit stage.

Web application security is not a single setting. It's layers of protection, each closing a separate class of attacks. Order an audit — we'll assess the project and deliver a turnkey plan within 2–4 weeks.

How do we ensure comprehensive web application security?

HTTPS and Proper TLS Configuration

HTTPS is the minimum mandatory level. But having an SSL certificate and having a properly configured TLS are different things.

In Nginx/Apache configuration we check:

• Protocols: only TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3, SSLv3 and TLS 1.0/1.1 are disabled
• Cipher suites: prefer ECDHE (Forward Secrecy), remove NULL, RC4, DES, 3DES
• HSTS (Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload) — browser will never make insecure requests
• OCSP Stapling — speeds up certificate revocation check
• Redirect 301 from HTTP to HTTPS — both in server config and code (double redirect causes SEO weight loss)

Check: SSL Labs (ssllabs.com/ssltest) should show A or A+. If B, the configuration is weak.

Let's Encrypt + Certbot for production is standard. Automatic renewal via certbot renew in cron. Wildcard certificates for subdomains via DNS-01 challenge.

Content Security Policy: The Most Powerful and Complex Protection

CSP is an HTTP header that tells the browser which sources are allowed to load resources. A properly configured CSP completely blocks most XSS attacks, even if the vulnerability exists in the code.

The problem: breaking the site with an incorrect CSP is easy. default-src 'none' — and fonts, images, JS stop working. So we start with Content-Security-Policy-Report-Only — CSP logs violations but does not block anything. We monitor reports for 2–4 weeks, refine the policy, then switch to enforcement mode.

Example of a real policy for a site with Google Analytics, Google Fonts, and Stripe:

Content-Security-Policy:
  default-src 'self';
  script-src 'self' https://www.googletagmanager.com https://js.stripe.com 'nonce-{random}';
  style-src 'self' https://fonts.googleapis.com 'unsafe-inline';
  font-src 'self' https://fonts.gstatic.com;
  frame-src https://js.stripe.com;
  img-src 'self' data: https://www.google-analytics.com;
  connect-src 'self' https://api.stripe.com https://www.google-analytics.com;
  report-uri /csp-report;

nonce — a random string generated server-side per request. Inline scripts with the correct nonce are allowed; without nonce, they are blocked. This completely breaks XSS via <script>alert(1)</script>.

'unsafe-inline' in style-src is a compromise for inline styles. It's better to remove it by moving all styles to CSS files, but that requires refactoring.

Why XSS Remains the Most Common Vulnerability?

XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) — injection of JS code through user input. According to OWASP, XSS is in the top 3 web application vulnerabilities. Three types:

Protection: never insert user input into HTML without escaping. In PHP — htmlspecialchars() with ENT_QUOTES. In Laravel Blade templates — {{ $var }} is safe, {!! $var !!} is dangerous. In React — {variable} is safe, dangerouslySetInnerHTML is dangerous. For Rich Text — use htmlpurifier on PHP or DOMPurify in the browser.

CSRF: Protecting Forms and APIs

CSRF (Cross-Site Request Forgery) — an attacker forces the victim's browser to send a request on their behalf. Example: a user is logged into a bank, opens a malicious page, which makes fetch('https://bank.ru/transfer?to=evil&amount=50000') — if the bank is unprotected, money is transferred.

CSRF tokens — standard protection for forms: the server generates a random token, stores it in the session, and inserts it as a hidden field in the form. On POST request, the token is verified. The attacker does not know the token. Laravel does this automatically with @csrf.

SameSite cookies — modern protection: SameSite=Strict or SameSite=Lax prevents the browser from sending cookies in cross-site requests. Works in all modern browsers.

API without sessions (JWT, Bearer tokens) — CSRF is irrelevant if the token is not stored in a cookie (but in the Authorization header or localStorage). However, localStorage is vulnerable to XSS — so for sensitive data, HttpOnly cookies with SameSite are preferable.

WAF and DDoS Protection

WAF (Web Application Firewall) filters HTTP traffic for attacks: SQL injection, XSS, path traversal, known exploit patterns. Options:

• Cloudflare WAF — cloud-based, OWASP Top 10 rules out of the box, custom rules via expressions. Managed Rules automatically block new threats.
• ModSecurity (Nginx/Apache) — self-hosted, OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS). Flexible but requires tuning and monitoring of false positives.
• AWS WAF — for infrastructure on AWS, integrates with CloudFront and ALB.

DDoS protection. Cloudflare at L3/L4/L7 is the de facto standard for most sites. Automatic mitigation of volumetric attacks, Under Attack Mode during active attacks. For critical infrastructure — Cloudflare Magic Transit or specialized solutions (Qrator, StormWall for the Russian market).

Rate Limiting at the application level — an additional layer. Laravel ThrottleRequests middleware: 60 requests per minute per IP for general endpoints, 5 for /login and /password/reset. Redis as a counter store — mandatory for horizontally scalable systems (otherwise limits are not synchronized between servers).

Other Mandatory Measures

Security headers. Besides CSP: X-Frame-Options: DENY (clickjacking protection), X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff (MIME sniffing), Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin, Permissions-Policy (restrict browser API access: camera, microphone, geolocation).

SQL injection. Prepared statements everywhere. No concatenation of user input into SQL strings. ORM (Eloquent, Doctrine) protects by default. $wpdb->prepare() in WordPress is mandatory.

Dependency updates. composer audit and npm audit in CI/CD pipeline. Dependabot or Renovate for automatic PRs with updates. Critical CVEs — patch within 24 hours.

Secrets and configuration. .env — never in Git. Secrets in production — via CI/CD environment variables (GitHub Secrets, GitLab CI Variables) or HashiCorp Vault. Leak detection: git-secrets, truffleHog in pre-commit hooks.

How We Work

1. Audit — code scanning, configuration review, dependency analysis, manual business logic verification.
2. Planning — vulnerability remediation plan, stack selection (CSP, WAF, rate limiting).
3. Implementation — TLS setup, CSP configuration, headers, Rate Limiting, WAF.
4. Testing — re-penetration test, load testing, false positive check.
5. Deployment and Monitoring — enable production CSP, set up alerts, train the team.

What's Included

• Report with found vulnerabilities and recommendations (PDF + code snippets)
• Ready TLS configuration (Nginx/Apache)
• CSP policy with Report-Only and production versions
• WAF and Rate Limiting setup
• Dependency update plan
• Access to monitoring tools (Sentry, Datadog)
• 30 days of post-audit support (consultations, fixes)

Timeline and Cost

The budget is calculated individually — contact us for a project evaluation.