Cougar Mountain Software said its CMS Professional 2011 accounting software product line has been officially validated to allow customers to process, store, and transmit credit and debit card data safely and securely and remain PCI compliant.
The software has received Payment Application Data Security Standards validation as established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. These new security measures provide software vendors with a definitive data standard to protect sensitive cardholder data, for the general consumer, from identity theft.
Software providers whose applications process, store or transmit credit or debit card data are supposed to receive this PA-DSS validation, which went into effect on July 1, 2010 as issued by the PCI Security Standards Council. If businesses and merchants use software that is not certified, they may be subjected to fines if their network is breached and cardholder data stolen.
To achieve PA-DSS validation for CMS Professional 2011, CMS has been working to ensure that its software meets PCI guidelines so customers remain in compliance. In order to do this, several steps were taken in terms of software security, users rights and the overall protection of credit and debit card data. For a list of all of the requirements for PA-DSS Validation, visit
CMS Professional products continue to work with the PCCharge credit and debit card processing system, which is also PCI compliant. As for Cougar Mountain Softwares Denali accounting product line, it too remains PCI compliant because the cardholder data is no longer stored within the Denali software (see
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