NEW YORK -- Protegrity Corporation (http://www.protegrity.com), a leading provider of data security management solutions, is pleased to announce that the company has been accepted as a participating member of the PCI Security Standards Council.

The PCI Security Standards Council develops, maintains and oversees the adoption of the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) -- a set of best practices for the payment industry. The PCI DSS enhances data security and proactively protects customer account information at all points in the payment process - processing, transmission and storage.

"With our rapidly growing base of retail clients, we've been helping merchants achieve compliance with PCI DSS using Protegrity's data security solutions," said Gordon Rapkin, Protegrity's CEO and president. "We are honored to be chosen to participate, and are eager to share our retail security experience with the council. The PCI DSS demonstrably benefits card holders, the industry as a whole and individual businesses - it's a comprehensive achievable security standard built on the shared knowledge of industry leaders and security experts."

Protegrity Corp.