Bluefin, the leading provider of payment security technologies including PCI-validated Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) solutions for retail, hospitality, healthcare, and higher education, has announced a new partnership with VanillaSoft that will provide their users integrated payment processing capabilities backed by PCI-validated P2PE.

Already equipped with best-in-class PCI-DSS compliance, VanillaSoft customers can now choose to implement Bluefin's PCI-validated P2PE solution for added security.

The Bluefin/VanillaSoft P2PE offering secures credit and debit card transactions by encrypting all data within a PCI-approved point of entry device. This prevents clear-text cardholder data from being available within the device, or in the merchant's system where exposure to malware is possible. Data decryption always occurs offsite in a Bluefin hardware security module (HSM), ensuring the highest level of security.

"By incorporating Bluefin's P2P encryption solution into our sales engagement platform, we are able to offer our customers – particularly those in the higher education and fundraising sector – a secure option for integrated payment processing," said David Hood, CEO of VanillaSoft.

By incorporating Bluefins P2P encryption solution into our sales engagement platform, we are able to offer our customers particularly those in the higher education and fundraising sector a secure option for integrated payment processing

It's crucial that higher education institutions have added security. As more engagement in higher education is done online, more data is being transferred and stored virtually. Hackers have taken notice of these changes in higher education and according to IBM, a data breach can cost educational institutions in the United States over $8 million.

"According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, there were 1,473 reported data breaches in the U.S. last year, an increase of 17% over the previous year," said Greg Cornwell, Chief Revenue Officer, Bluefin. "Hackers don't discriminate and they target companies of all sizes and industries. VanillaSoft recognizes the need to protect their clients' payment data with PCI-validated P2PE and we are very pleased to bring this solution to their customer base."

Through the partnership, VanillaSoft clients can get PCI-validated P2PE and integrated payment processing using Bluefin's PayConex payment platform. PayConex integrates directly with VanillaSoft to process debit and credit payments, as well as provide tokenization and eCommerce and card present payment acceptance.