Voting for PCI Special Interest Groups is Open

I know a number of your institutions are Participating Organizations (POs) in the PCI Council. If you are, it is time you get your PCI team -- including business and IT groups -- together to decide how to cast your vote for the Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for 2012.

The Council received 31 nominations for SIGs, and they narrowed it down to seven. Based on how POs vote, three will be selected for 2012. The seven are (in no particular order):

• Managing administrative access to systems and devices
• Preparing a risk assessment
• Patch management
• eCommerce security
• Cloud technology
• PCI for small businesses
• Managing hosted service providers.

Looking at the seven, four are more technical in nature and three are business focused. That is why I suggest you want to get your whole team together so you gather ideas from all over the institution.

As most of you know, I (along with Tom Davis of Indiana University) represent NACUBO which is a PO. We finished our analysis and have recommended NACUBO's vote (which I'm casting later today) to reflect the mix of needs of Higher Ed institutions of all sizes. You now need to do the same for your institution. Voting opened Monday (Oct 24) and closes November 3, so don't wait!

Schools that are POs were sent an email last week with a link to the Council's PO portal. The portal has videos of the brief presentations from the Community Meeting where they previewed each nominated SIG. I recommend you view the videos, discuss your priorities, and cast your vote.

Not many standards or regulatory organizations let their 'constituents' decide where to do research and provide guidance. The PCI Council does, so I hope all schools who are POs will be sure and vote.