ShopSite Knowledgebase

Warning on Orders menu about symmetric encryption after upgrade

Product: ALL
Version: ShopSite 14 or newer
Platform: ALL

Recently I noticed a message at the top of the Orders menu in my ShopSite backoffice that says "Warning: instead of using a Merchant Key (asymmetric encryption) you are using symmetric encryption which is not PCI Compliant." What is the problem, and what can I do about it?

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Your store was recently upgraded to version 14 or newer of ShopSite, and one of the new PCI-related features includes this warning to let you know that Asymmetric encryption of saved credit card data is more secure, and that symmetric encryption of credit card data is not enough to be PCI compliant. There has NOT been a security event that triggered this message in your store.

When you go into your ShopSite interface under Orders > Security > Credit Card Storage you can select whether you want to use Symmetric Encryption or Asymmetric Encryption which uses a merchant 'key' file to lock and unlock credit card data. If you are manually processing credit card payments, then you need to select either Symmetric or Asymmetric encryption. If you are using a payment gateway (such as Authorize.net, First Data Payeezy, PayPal Payflow Pro, etc) to process credit cards automatically when the order is placed, we recommend the ‘Do not store Credit Cards’ option.

Note that if you select the PCI-compliant Asymmetric Encryption option and go through the setup process to create and download the Merchant Key, once you have validate the key file and this setting is active you will need to take very good care of this key file (perhaps make multiple copies to keep in safe locations) because you will not have access to credit card information in future credit card orders placed while this option is active without first uploading the key file. If you lose the key file there will be no way to access the credit card information without contacting the shopper and asking for it again.

Here is more information about the credit card storage options from our help documentation:
http://help.shopsite.com/help/current/en-US/sc/pro/cc_storage.html

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