The PCI-DSS standards are designed to help protect card-holder data. The specific section we’re interested in is section 4.1 of the v1.2 revision of the standards which are available for download here: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/security_standards/pci_dss_download_agreement.html
The standards layout that you should use strong cryptography and security protocols when transmitting card data over open, public networks (ie the Internet).
If [...]

A common consulting engagement for us is configuring a new system for optimal use. It’s not just the application server that’ll need configuring, don’t forget the application server relies on a lot of underlying infrastructure including the network and OS. Often this stage gets over-looked or you’ll (often incorrectly) assume your hosting provider will have [...]

Have you noticed requests stop processing and your CPU usage is high?
There are many possible causes of this – a common one being using “Registry” as the CLIENT variable backing store.
Have you seen this combined with “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space” errors in your logs?
Again, there are several causes for filling the PermGen space but one common [...]