Updating SQL Data and PCI DSS Compliance

[bustell]

Is anyone out there working towards PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and use SQL Server to store sensitive card holder information?

The issue that I am dealing with right now is we process credit cards and store some encrypted card holder information in our database. Periodically we purge that information by updating the data and wiping out the sensitive information.

We had previously thought this would be sufficient. However according to the standard (requirement 9.10.2) we need to securely wipe the data rendering it completely unrecoverable.

I'm not sure that just performing an update statement wiping out the data is sufficient for securely rendering the data unrecoverable. I know you can't recover the data using SQL Server, but what if someone were to use a disk utility to examine the sectors, would they (if they really knew what they were doing) be able to recover the data?

Has anyone else run into this, considered this or have even gone through an third party audit that addressed this?



Pat B

 

[SQLSister]

I wouldn't even say it was unrecoverable in SQl server, you do have backups don't you?

"NOTHING is more important in a database than integrity." ESquared

 

[bustell]

We do have backups, but they will also be securely deleted after a period of time. I understand that removing the data from the current file will not remove them from past backups.

I am mainly concerned about the current file and securely removing data from it. Backups are another issue I need to tackle.


Pat B