Akamai Technologies Inc. says its new Edge Tokenization service pushes sensitive transaction data away from vulnerable online merchants payment networks.
Introduced Sept. 27, Edge Tokenization places the token-creation stage onto Akamai’s EdgePlatform, a distributed computing network operating on more than 73,000 secure servers worldwide.
Tokens stand in for the actual cardholder data during a transaction and help reduce the potential for fraudsters to steal sensitive information. They typically replace sensitive card data at the point of sale, but Akamai says its service for online merchants moves that step onto its secure Web infrastructure through a partnership with CyberSource Corp., an online payment gateway owned by Visa Inc.
CyberSource is providing the tokenization technology.
“With Edge Tokenization, by the time transactions hits the merchants’ infrastructure, it is already tokenized and does not include any card data,” Michael Cucchi, Akamai senior product marketing manager for dynamic site solutions, tells PaymentsSource. “Standard tokenization removes the requirement to store credit cards, but merchants are still processing credit cards as they tokenize, requiring the systems and potentially storage involved in that process to remain in PCI scope.”
Under mandates from the major card brands, merchants must ensure their payment networks meet Payment Card Industry data security standards.
Edge Tokenization works with a merchant’s existing online payment gateway to tokenize the card data without storing it to a hard drive, and it does not affect transaction time, Cambridge, Mass.-based Akamai says
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