Best Practices for Secure Credit Card Storage
Businesses must never store CVV/CVC codes, full magnetic stripe data, or PINs under any circumstances. For PANs that must be retained, use AES-256 encryption with hardware security modules (HSMs) or, better yet, replace card data entirely with tokens via a PCI-DSS-compliant third-party vault. This removes raw card data from your environment and reduces your compliance scope from SAQ D (hundreds of controls) to SAQ A (as few as 22 controls).