Which statement describes PCI compliance in the context of handling payment information?

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PCI compliance centers on protecting cardholder data through layered security controls. A core idea is to create strong boundaries for payment data with network protections like firewalls, helping to separate financial information from other systems and reduce the risk of unauthorized access, especially when integrating with cloud services. It also emphasizes keeping only as much data as needed and protecting any data you do retain, using encryption and strict access controls. This combination—strong network barriers plus minimizing retention and securing stored data—embodies what PCI aims to achieve in handling payment information. In contrast, storing all card numbers, focusing only on encryption during transit, relying on firewalls alone, or viewing PCI as unrelated to payment processing all miss the comprehensive, data-protective approach PCI requires.