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Small company, big security challenges

Small company, big ambitions. Sounds like the classic entrepreneurial dream—but what if it means you bear the burden of big-company regulatory or standards compliance?

Small company, big ambitions. Sounds like the classic entrepreneurial dream—but what if it means you bear the burden of big-company regulatory or standards compliance?

Linkable Networks is a Boston-based startup that provides technology-based services that allow consumers to link store-level and item-level discount offers directly to their credit or debit card of choice—without requiring point-of-sale integration, mail-in rebates, or paper coupons. The company sees itself as bridging the gap between advertisers, brands, consumers and financial institutions.

Linkable was formed in September 2010 and currently has fewer than 50 employee. But with the goal of building a highly scalable infrastructure for this spectrum of customers, the company decided it would need security controls for Level-1 PCI DSS compliance, the high-end requirements typically applied to businesses processing more than six million transactions per year.