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Which PCI DSS Requirements Do Blancco Solutions Satisfy?

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The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security
guidelines designed to ensure that all companies processing, storing, or transmitting
payment card information, safeguard cardholder data (CHD) against the risk of stored
account data being compromised.

As with previous versions, the most recent update of the guidelines, PCI DSS v4.0.1.,
maintains that companies must satisfy data destruction and minimization requirements.
Need to meet the PCI DSS requirements for the disposal of cardholder data?

Blancco can help. The following compliance checklist sets out some of the relevant requirements and the Blancco solutions that address them.

PCI DSS Requirement 3: Protect Stored Account Data

PCI DSS V4.0.1 REQUIREMENTBLANCCO SOLUTIONHOW BLANCCO HELPS
3.2.1 – “Account data storage is kept to a minimum
through implementation of data retention and
disposal policies, procedures, and processes
that include at least the following:

– Processes for secure deletion or rendering
account data unrecoverable when no
longer needed per the retention policy
– A process for verifying, at least once every
three months, that stored account data
exceeding the defined retention period has been
securely deleted or rendered unrecoverable”

Also stated within the requirements:

“The deletion function in most operating systems
is not ‘secure deletion’ as it allows deleted data
to be recovered, so instead, a dedicated secure
deletion function or application must be used to
make data unrecoverable.”		Blancco File Eraser
Blancco Virtual Machine Eraser
Blancco LUN
Blancco Drive Eraser
Blancco solutions go beyond mere “deletion.”
Our tools securely and permanently erase data,
making it unrecoverable from computers, drives,
and live environments.

Blancco solutions also enable programmatic
processes by automating data erasure according
to policy and requirement.

Example: Blancco File Eraser supports this PCI
requirement with scripting and scheduling.
Merchants can erase private credit card data
on a regular, ongoing basis to ensure and prove
compliance with erasure reports.

Scheduling the ongoing sanitization of assets
enforces data retention policies in a scalable,
automated way.

Blancco File Eraser, Virtual Machine Eraser, and LUN
Eraser all offer coverage in virtual machine, active
storage, and hypervisor environments.

Blancco Drive Eraser supports full wiping of
cardholder data and sensitive authentication data
(SAD) on HDDs and SSDs once those devices reach
end-of-life.
3.3 – “SAD is not stored after authorization,
even if encrypted. All sensitive authentication
data received is rendered unrecoverable upon
completion of the authorization process.”

N.B., it is permissible for issuers and companies
that support issuing services to store sensitive
authentication data if:

– There is a business justification
– The data is stored securely		Blancco File Eraser
Blancco Virtual Machine Eraser
Blancco LUN Eraser
Blancco Drive Eraser
Blancco erasure products support cryptographic
erasure techniques (when they exist) and can also
apply additional erasure processes to increase the
security when data is no longer needed or cannot
be kept.

Example: Blancco File Eraser can be used to erase
files carrying payment card data in a Windows or Unix
environment, while Blancco Virtual Machine Eraser
supports this process by erasing data on hypervisor
layers within virtual machines without disruption to
business operations.

Blancco LUN Eraser allows organizations to erase
data in active storage environments while allowing
the operating system to remain intact.

PCI DSS Requirement 4: Protect Cardholder Data with Strong Cryptography
During Transmission Over Open, Public Networks

PCI DSS V4.0.1 REQUIREMENTBLANCCO SOLUTIONHOW BLANCCO HELPS
4.2.2 – “There could be occurrences where an entity
receives unsolicited cardholder data via an insecure
communication channel that was not intended for
transmissions of sensitive data. In this situation,
the entity can choose to either include the channel
in the scope of their CDE and secure it according
to PCI DSS or delete the cardholder data and
implement measures to prevent the channel
from being used for cardholder data.”		Blancco File Eraser
Blancco Virtual Machine Eraser
Blancco LUN Eraser		If unsolicited data is received via insecure channels,
merchants may choose to delete the data. As PCI
DSS v4.0.1 explains elsewhere in the guidelines,
however, the data deletion function in most operating
systems is insecure, which means a dedicated
secure erasure solution should be used

PCI DSS Requirement 9: Restrict Physical Access to Cardholder Data

PCI DSS V4.0.1 REQUIREMENTBLANCCO SOLUTIONHOW BLANCCO HELPS
9.4.7 – “Electronic media with cardholder data is
destroyed when no longer needed for business
or legal reasons via one of the following:

– The electronic media is destroyed
– The cardholder data is rendered unrecoverable
so that it cannot be reconstructed”		Blancco File Eraser
Blancco Virtual Machine Eraser
Blancco LUN Eraser
Blancco Drive Eraser
Blancco Eraser for Apple Devices
Blancco products meet the highest international
media sanitization requirements, supporting
merchants to securely erase electronic media
in line with PCI DSS requirement 9.4.7.

Blancco Drive Eraser in particular sanitizes drives
in line with Clear and Purge level erasure as
prescribed in the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) 800-88, REV. 1 standard
and the newer IEEE 2883-2022 standard.
All data erasures are certified by 100%
tamper-proof reports.

PCI DSS Requirement 10: Log and Monitor All Access
to System Components and Cardholder Data

PCI DSS V4.0.1 REQUIREMENTBLANCCO SOLUTIONHOW BLANCCO HELPS
“Logging mechanisms and the ability to track
user activities are critical in preventing, detecting,
or minimizing the impact of a data compromise.
The presence of logs on all system components
and in the cardholder data environment (CDE)
allows thorough tracking, alerting, and analysis
when something does go wrong. Determining the
cause of a compromise is difficult, if not impossible,
without system activity logs. This requirement
applies to user activities, including those by
employees, contractors, consultants, and internal
and external vendors, and other third parties
(for example, those providing support or
maintenance services).”		Blancco Management PortalBlancco Management Portal is a centralized
platform that allows you to manage data erasure
across all IT assets, with a single program for
consolidated reporting.

Every time a data erasure is performed, a report is
created and stored for compliance, audit, reporting,
verification, and retention purposes.

For over 20 years, Blancco has offered solutions that support compliance with data protection and privacy regulations like PCI DSS v4.0.1.

We support organizations in all industries to stay compliant with relevant regulations with
data erasure solutions that satisfy (and often exceed) those requirements.

Download the Solution Brief.

This content was originally published in 2017 and was updated in 2025 to reflect the changes in PCI DSS v4.0.1. The full guidelines can be found via the PCI Security Standards Council.

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