PERSON: Chris Mark

Blog Global Risk Info

U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Veteran who runs the Blog Global Risk Info.

Chris is an experienced corporate executive, entrepreneur, consultant, and information security professional and is a recognized payment card security and PCI expert. Chris worked with Visa in 2001 on the development of the initial CISP standards which predated the PCI DSS. He was the industry’s first PCI assessor and conducted over 120 PCI assessments on major companies including major banks, processors, merchants, and more. After selling his QSA firm, Chris joined MasterCard Worldwide on their Site Data Protection team where he was responsible for compliance of all MasterCard service providers. He also represented MasterCard on the PCI SSC technical working group and was responsible for helping publish the initial PCI DSS in 2006. Upon leaving MasterCard Chris founded another company which focused on PCI DSS training and consulting. From 2007-2009, Chris was the worldwide Qualified Security Assessors (QSA) trainer as well as the worldwide PCI trainer for Visa Inc. He has conducted PCI and payment security training to over 10,000 people in 10 countries on 5 different continents.

Prior to joining the civilian sector, Mr. Mark served in both the United States Marine Corps where he operated as a Force Reconnaissance Marine, Marine Scout/Sniper, Security Forces Marine, and in the US Navy where he was selected to serve as a Navy SEAL Officer before a training injury ended his career. Mr. Mark is a combat veteran of Operation Continue Hope, Mogadishu, Somalia and served as the training officer of the Marine Basic Reconnaissance Course. He has attended numerous military schools including; Marine Combat Training, Marine Infantry, Marine Scout/Sniper, SOTG Urban Sniper, SOTG Urban Reconnaissance & Surveillance, US Army Airborne, US Army Pathfinder, US Navy Scuba, Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance, HRST Master, and Marine Security Forces, among others.

Mr. Mark holds the CISSP, and CIPP professional certifications, numerous technical certifications, and has an MBA and BA degrees. Mr. Mark has spoken at dozens of events on the topic of information security and PCI compliance and has written numerous articles on the topic.