Credit cards in the cloud: Does Amazon EC2 meet PCI Compliance?
It is possible for you to build a PCI level 2 compliant app in our AWS cloud using EC2 and S3, but you cannot achieve level 1 compliance. And you have to provide the appropriate encryption mechanisms and key management processes. If you have a data breach, you automatically need to become level 1 compliant which requires on-site auditing; that is something we cannot extend to our customers. This seems like a risk that could challenge your business; as a best practice, I recommend businesses always plan for level 1 compliance. So, from a compliance and risk management perspective, we recommend that you do not store sensitive credit card payment information in our EC2/S3 system because it is not inherently PCI level 1 compliant. It is quite feasible for you to run your entire app in our cloud but keep the credit card data stored on your own local servers which are available for auditing, scanning, and on-site review at any time.
Recommendation is to go with authorize.net CIM or ARB, which stores credit cards. EC2/S3 app would then access the ccard information with a token. Amazon's own Flexible Payments Service works this way, too.
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