Doha: Crossbow Labs, the leading Cyber security compliance and certification body, has issued the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) Certification of Compliance to Lulu Hypermarket, the major hypermarket chain in the region.
Lulu Group is one of the leading hypermarket chains in Qatar to achieve the PCI-DSS Certification of Compliance in the retail sector. Dr. Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group International has received the PCI DSS Certification during the virtual awarding ceremony held last week.
The PCI DSS is aimed to enhance security for consumers by setting guidelines for any company that accepts, stores, processes, or transmits credit card information, regardless of the number of transactions or the size of those transactions. It is a set of requirements intended to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.
The PCI DSS is designed to provide necessary framework for developing a complete payment card data security process that encompasses prevention, detection, and appropriate reaction to security incidents.
An independent body created by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB, the PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) administers and manages the PCI DSS. Interestingly, the payment brands and acquirers are responsible for enforcing compliance, rather than the PCI SSC.
The Certification comes as a result of stringent security practices in place to secure customers’ payment card information, across all stores and channels.
Honouring LuLu Group’s initiative to comply with the cyber security, Deepak Umapathy, CEO of Crossbow Labs said, “Lulu Group is one of the very few conglomerate organisations that prioritises customer experiences and is bold enough to adopt international best practices in cyber security initiatives. Lulu’s technical teams are tasked with securing the it infra on the massive scale that Lulu operates on and it demonstrates their expertise and commitment towards security. PCI Certification in Qatar and UAE is a vindication of this commitment.”
Commenting on the sidelines of the event, Dr. Mohamed Althaf, Director of Lulu Group International, said, “I am very pleased to receive the PCI-DSS Certification from Crossbow Labs, one of the internationally acclaimed Cyber security compliance and certification bodies. This is an important milestone in our efforts to ensure cyber security to the personal data of our valued customers”.
He added that Lulu Hypermarket has invested so much money to ensure the security of its retail business operations.
“We have to take very seriously the security issue as it has a lot of challenges amid cases of cybercrimes, which have been recorded in the country,” said Dr. Althaf.
He said that this is not only about security of transactions and data integrity of our company, but the need also arise as Lulu is getting bigger adding more stakeholders and different ways of transactions. He thanked the staff for their hard work to make this achievement.
“We will monitor regularly through the system. This is a beginning as we just established a protocol. We need to keep it upgrading continuously to face any arising challenges,” said Dr. Althaf.
He said that Lulu is dealing with a lot of institutions and individuals, so it is needed to reassure them that the Lulu system is at par to ensure the security. “Our security system is as good as any system of the Central Bank in terms of physical cash and transactions,” said Dr. Althaf.
