Thales, a provider of critical information systems and cybersecurity, announced in a press release that Verifone now uses Thales nShield hardware security modules for its end-to-end payment encryption product — VeriShield Total Protect — to provide robust, high speed, scalable crypto to protect card holder data, whether transmitted from a card or mobile device, right from the moment of capture.

Thales said its hardware security modules provide a highly secure, high speed and scalable product in Verifone's end-to-end encryption architecture, which is intended to reduce the risk of payment card data compromise within a merchant's retail environment. The protection of payment card data by encrypting from Verifone's secure payment terminals all the way to the Thales hardware security modules also dramatically reduces the number of applicable PCI controls, simplifying the deployment environment for the merchant, according to the announcement.

VeriShield Total Protect from Verifone protects merchants, payment providers and consumers alike by encrypting cardholder information from the moment it is captured at the terminal until it is securely accessed behind a processor's firewall, according to the announcement. Thales hardware security modules are used to perform secure key exchanges and secure key derivations that produce a unique key to protect each and every payment transaction.

All the decryption is performed within the Thales hardware security modules, protecting the encryption keys from virtually any attack, according to the announcement. Taking advantage of capabilities unique to the Thales Security World architecture, Verifone said it is able to easily combine multiple hardware security modules at multiple data centers to service very high transaction volumes with automated load balancing and failover, a capability not offered by other solution providers.

"As a global payment solutions and commerce enablement leader, Verifone's strategy is to develop and deploy best-in-class payment solutions and services that meet or exceed global security standards and help our clients securely accept electronic payments across all channels of commerce," Joe Majka, Verifone's chief security officer, Verifone, said. "We selected Thales HSMs to provide robust security, unmatched performance and superior scalability across our payment security platforms, protecting encryption keys from virtually any attack. This helps Verifone to continue reducing merchants' growing exposure to data breaches and cybercriminals and more aggressively safeguard consumer information through the multilayered approach to security that Verifone is known for, which goes well beyond the requirements of PCI DSS."