Question about Credit Card hash storage

[drhoo]

As far as I understand in WHMCS, credit card hashes are stored in the config file.
Is there an option not to do this?

Saving credit card hashes on the same system is like having your pin numbers in the same wallet as your credit cards.

Please clarify this. I was going to move from Clientexect to WHMCS and this one issue is holding me up.

[m8internet]

What about saving to a separate file and folder, outwith public_html
Same principle as the templates_c folder

[drhoo]

What about saving to a separate file and folder, outwith public_html
Same principle as the templates_c folder

No, that's not good enough. If the server is compromised, you're done for. Hash keys should never have to be stored.

[everythingweb]

what is your suggestion on how they do this then, drhoo?

an honest question, i am interested in how this would be done. if you store the DB on a remote server and that DB gets compromised then that's fine but if the host that accesses the DB and has the hash file gets compromised then you're buggered again. what other way's are there around this?

[drhoo]

You encrypt credit cards with key that's never stored anywhere. You have to remember it or store it in your office. Every time you need to process credit cards you need to enter the key.

If anyone gets hold of your db, at least they need to do a bit of work to crack your key. Having to store the hash key on the same system is a big mistake.

[everythingweb]

ok so a manual solution then

[jclarke]

I would recommend not using the built in credit card storage at all and store all of your customers data with a tokenized vault. That way you can still do automated recurring payments and your customers credit card information is safe.

WHMCS supports a few of these already and has scripts to convert your currently saved credit card data.

[drhoo]

ok so a manual solution then

The only manual part is when you enter your key. You can still batch-process and take do other automated tasks.

[laszlof]

How do you expect to encrypt the credit cards in the first place without the hash? I suppose you could just store them as plain text until you can be bothered to login and enter the CC encryption hash.. right?

[drhoo]

How do you expect to encrypt the credit cards in the first place without the hash? I suppose you could just store them as plain text until you can be bothered to login and enter the CC encryption hash.. right?

You encrypt them with the same private key. The idea is very simple and has been in use for many years.

[everythingweb]

How do you expect to encrypt the credit cards in the first place without the hash? I suppose you could just store them as plain text until you can be bothered to login and enter the CC encryption hash.. right?

Unfortunately automation is the issue and people signing up at random times during the month I'm sure WHMCS has charges going off almost every day - this will be an admin nightmare.

The safest bet is probably to either have Paypal subscriptions as the only auto-bill option and then require a manual payment from each WHMCS client if they do not use Paypal (or any other payment providers who offer a similar subscription system where they store the CC's themselves).

Unless you are a financial institution it's never wise to store CC details in my opinion

[CavalloComm]

Our Gateway, GoEMerchant - which I was able to cofigure with a little help and the PlanetAuthorize app will do their OWN reacurring in your merchant account. THis way they just have to pay once, request reacurring and you can go and set it for them

[easyhosting]

maybe using a passphrase like CE

Credit card information is encrypted within ClientExec once a customer enters their credit card information. ClientExec requires that you further encrypt this credit card information by adding a string word, called a passphrase, that is not stored anywhere on the server or database.

Each time a customer enters their credit card number, you must "validate" the number using a passphrase. The credit card number is encrypted using the passphrase and can not be decrypted unless the passphrase is provided. The first time you "validate" a credit card your passphrase is set.

Warning: The passphrase can not be retrieved if forgotten, you will be able to recreate a passphrase but all credit cards will have to be reentered.

When processing credit card based invoices you will require this passphrase.

[FlexiHost]

Out of interest, if it's any help, we use ioncube to encrypt the config file, which contains the hash (and all other details)

WHMCS seems to still run sweet - I know not the perfect solution but...

[Y3K-Daniel]

Out of interest, if it's any help, we use ioncube to encrypt the config file, which contains the hash (and all other details)

WHMCS seems to still run sweet - I know not the perfect solution but...

You do realise ioncube encoded files can easily be decoded, right? Would take only a couple of minutes to decode something as small as the config file.

Or if you know the variable names stored inside (easily found for WHMCS config), you just include the encoded file in a php script and print out all the variables you want.