💳PCI DSS 9.1Rule: PCI-9-1medium

Physical Access Restriction

Description

Use appropriate facility entry controls to limit and monitor physical access to systems in the CDE.

⚠️ Risk Impact

Physical access to POS terminals, server rooms, or workstations bypasses all logical controls. Card skimmers + USB exfiltrators target physical access opportunities.

🔍 How EchelonGraph Detects This

PCI-9-1Automated scanner rule

EchelonGraph's Tier 1 Cloud Scanner automatically checks for this condition across all connected cloud accounts. Violations are flagged as medium-severity findings with remediation guidance.

🔧 Remediation

Badge access to CDE areas. Visitor escort policy. CCTV. POS terminal tamper-detection. Periodic physical security walkthroughs.

💀 Real-World Attack Scenario

A retail chain's POS terminals were modified by attackers posing as 'technicians'. Hardware skimmers were inserted; 80,000 card records captured over 4 months before detection. Physical access controls + tamper-detection would have caught the modification.

💰 Cost of Non-Compliance

Physical-access PCI breaches: avg $4.2M. POS skimming attacks: $X per record exposed.

📋 Audit Questions

  • 1.Badge controls to CDE areas?
  • 2.Visitor escort policy?
  • 3.POS tamper-detection?
  • 4.Recent physical security walkthrough?

🎯 MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

T1200 — Hardware Additions

⚡ Common Pitfalls

  • ⛔Cloud-only orgs ignoring office controls
  • ⛔Tailgating culture
  • ⛔No tamper-detection on POS

📈 Business Value

Physical controls close attack vectors invisible to digital defenses.

⏱️ Effort Estimate

Manual

Annual security walkthrough + policy

With EchelonGraph

EchelonGraph monitors cloud-provider attestations

🔗 Cross-Framework References

SOC2-CC6.4ISO27001-A.7.2

Automate PCI DSS 9.1 compliance

EchelonGraph continuously monitors this control across all your cloud accounts.

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