If your infrastructure relies on multiple cloud service providers, your security risks may be higher than an organization that relies on a single provider. With the right security tools, you can correct for the increased vulnerability, but you will also need to account for compliance with industry regulations.
For organizations that accept credit card payments, PCI DSS 4.0 is the latest iteration of requirements that will be effective in 2025. To be successful, organizations must comply with these requirements, but the regulations are also important contributors to your company’s security. Multi-cloud environments make this challenging, but effective monitoring and security tools can help ensure compliance and keep your data secure.
Introduction to PCI DSS 4.0
Although in most places PCI DSS is an industry regulation rather than a government one, compliance is still imperative for organizations that process credit card payments. You really don’t want to get on the wrong side of the regulation and risk large fines, but compliance is also generally a wise course for your organization’s security.
In March 2025, PCI DSS 4.0 goes into effect, which means you need to ensure that your organization is prepared for the changes. Some highlights of the new standards:
- Payment Records. Your organization must have payment records that can account for every transaction and its integrity. This documentation should then be stored securely.
- Security Tailoring and Customization. The trouble with many regulations is that they don’t always account for your organization’s operations and best practices. PCI DSS 4.0 increases the flexibility offered to companies to reduce compliance challenges. This is especially important for organizations with multi-cloud environments. With customization allowances, these companies with more complex security environments can cover their bases without overcomplicating operations.
- Access Control and User Authentication. One of the most important aspects of PCI DSS 4.0 compliance is granular control over access to your data and infrastructure. Minimize the amount of data that any given user can access. Employees should never have free access to all organizational data. Additionally, any user that logs in to your cloud environment must be authenticated to reduce the risk of infiltration. Multi-factor authentication is essential to meet this standard.
- Training for Employees. Security awareness training is required for all employees under PCI DSS 4.0. Your employees must demonstrate that they can correctly respond to phishing and social engineering attacks, among others. Social engineering attacks are one of the top causes of authentication failures, so it’s especially important to train employees to recognize them.
This is not an exhaustive list of the updates, so be sure to review the full list of evolving requirements. Following PCI DSS 4.0 is one of the best ways your organization can limit its risk of data compromise, which will then limit credit card fraud and other issues.
Compliance Challenges in Multi-Cloud Environments
Although following PCI DSS 4.0 rules will improve your security, implementing the necessary tools will not always be easy. Because many organizations now operate on multi-cloud environments, complete data visibility, consistent monitoring, and comprehensive protection are challenging to fully adopt.
Multi-cloud environments may be what your organization needs for your infrastructure, but having multiple providers means you have to stay on top of multiple platforms and data repositories. An additional complicating factor is the nature of your cloud services. If you have both public and private clouds, you have an extra layer of your security environment to manage.
Some organizations rely on multi-cloud environments because of different service offerings between providers. The upfront costs of using two or more providers for different services can be less expensive than a single provider. However, incorporating multiple third-party organizations increases your risk of a data security incident. Having more platforms means you have more potential attack vectors.
Due to the complexity of the security environment, there is a higher risk of undiscovered weaknesses. If you don’t have a clear understanding of each cloud service provider’s security policy, you risk noncompliance with PCI DSS 4.0, and your likelihood of discovering the problem is lower than it would be if you were only monitoring one platform.
Ensuring Effective PCI DSS 4.0 Compliance
While it is more challenging in a multi-cloud environment, there are ways you can ensure compliance across all cloud service providers. The first step is to ensure that each provider you use is independently compliant with all regulations that you need to follow. If any are not, you will want to find a new provider. You could potentially fill in the gaps with your own security solutions, but the risk of data compromise is higher if the provider is not on the same page.
To ensure effective compliance, you need security solutions that work in a multi-cloud environment. For best results, look for solutions with the following features:
- Data discovery and visibility. Since you can’t secure what you can’t see, complete visibility is essential for compliance. You need a solution that keeps a complete inventory of things like transactions and consumer data.
- Policy enforcement. Because access control is such an important component of PCI DSS 4.0 compliance, a solution that enforces your access control policies is essential.
- Monitoring and alerts. A good solution will monitor access attempts and activity within your environment so that it can alert you to unusual patterns. These patterns are often a precursor to attacks, so a consistent monitoring solution is important for quick detection and minimal negative effects.
Implementing solutions that offer these and other security features can help ensure PCI DSS 4.0 compliance, even in a multi-cloud environment. Monitoring and data visibility prevent your employees from losing or improperly securing information. Policy enforcement reduces the risk of insider threats or unauthorized users accessing sensitive data.
A multi-cloud environment presents unique security challenges. With the right security solutions, you can overcome these challenges, comply with PCI DSS 4.0, and secure your own and your customers’ sensitive information.
