Hershey Entertainment & Resorts is a privately held company located in the tourist center of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and has entertainment, resort and commercial divisions. Earlier this year, Hershey learned that because the entertainment and resort operations accept credit cards for payment, they needed the information stored by their box office ticketing and reservations applications to be encrypted at the field level to meet PCI requirements.
The applications they have to handle these functions were written for the System i platform, so the product they purchased had to be compatible with it, as well as provide enough flexibility to allow them to easily encrypt and decrypt the numbers as needed.
After seeing how easy it was to use [Powertech Encryption for IBM i] and learning about its additional features, including the ability to encrypt existing files, it just seemed like it was the right product to get. We’ve been using it now for over 6 months, and it was definitely the right decision.
Barry Smith, Financial/HCM Applications Manager, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts
Making Conversion Simple
Says Barry Smith, Financial/HCM Applications Manager for Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, “I looked at three vendors, and from what I could see, Crypto Complete was a robust, up-to-date package.”
Hershey then scheduled a one-on-one demo of Crypto Complete. After seeing it, they decided to try the 30-day trial, the success of which ultimately led to the purchase and implementation.
“Really, the main reason we took such a close look at and ultimately chose Crypto Complete was—no pun intended—the completeness of the application. It allows us to easily convert existing data and credit card numbers. The procedures were already in place to run and encrypt the data within a file; we didn’t have to write once-and-done programs to go through and encrypt everything—all we had to do was identify the file or field, its length, and it would encrypt it for you.
“We had to modify some of our programs that maintain the files, but we were up and running in less than a month, and we haven’t had to touch them since. It’s been a very good experience,” states Smith.
“Whenever we purchase anything, we try to keep it as simple as we can. “After seeing how easy it was to use Crypto Complete and learning about its additional features, including the ability to encrypt existing files, it just seemed like it was the right product to get. We’ve been using it now for over six months, and it was definitely the right decision,” says Smith.
What’s next for Hershey? “People are concerned about data other than just credit card numbers these days. For example, in our payroll system, we have social security numbers, and I would think the day is going to come when we will have to encrypt that data, so that might be the next application we pursue,” finishes Smith.
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Find out how strong encryption, tokenization, integrated key management and auditing can help protect your sensitive IBM i data and meet compliance regulations. Request a free Powertech Encryption for IBM i demo today.