Card verification values

Detects references to card verification values in financial and compliance documents. Commonly found in international regulatory filings, transaction records, and audit documentation.

Type

regex

Engine

boost_regex

Confidence

medium

Confidence justification

identifier/document-structure anchored regex with constrained context replaces phrase-only detection. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.

Detection quality

Mixed

Jurisdictions

global

Regulations

GDPR, PCI-DSS

Data categories

financial

Scope

wide

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?is)\b(?:card\s+verification\s+values|security\s+code|card\s+verification\s+code|card\s+security\s+code|three\s+digit\s+code|PCI\s+DSS|cardholder\s+verification)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

card verification values, card, verification, values, financial, accounts, payments, fiscal, monetary, accounting, treasury, audit, revenue, expenditure, budget, ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, balance sheet, profit and loss (+30 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• card verification values — Primary topic phrase match
• security code — Case-insensitive topic phrase match
• card verification code — Alternative topic phrase match
• card security code — Additional topic phrase match

Should not match

• unrelated generic text without domain phrases — No relevant topic phrases present
• placeholder value 12345 — Random text should not match topic-specific regex
• payroll reimbursement — Generic word pair from old broad template should not match

Known false positives

• Financial terminology appearing in published reports, accounting textbooks, regulatory guidance, or template documents without actual transaction data. Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window. Cross-reference with structured financial identifiers to confirm actual sensitive data.
• In English (as the primary international business language), standard business terminology overlapping with financial detection keywords in routine correspondence and documentation. Mitigation: Increase confidence threshold when scanning business correspondence. Layer with transaction-specific patterns for higher precision.

References

• https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/faq/articles/Frequently_Asked_Question/Can-card-verification-codes-values-be-stored-for-card-on-file-or-recurring-transactions
• https://docs-prv.pcisecuritystandards.org/PCI%20DSS/Standard/PCI-DSS-v4_0_1.pdf