6.5.6 Remove test data and accounts before production

Test data and test accounts must be taken off system components before the system is put into production. The testing procedures cover commercial packaged software as well as applications built in-house, including recently installed or updated ones. Leftover test records and accounts can reveal how an application works and give an attacker an easy foothold into the system and the account data it handles. It applies to all entities. Objective under the customized approach: test data and test accounts cannot be present in production environments.

Source: PCI DSS v4.0.1, 6.5.6. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open PCI DSS v4.0.1 in the compliance library.

Version 4.0.1 is the active version; 4.0 has been retired. Appendix A1 applies only to multi-tenant service providers, A2 only to card-present POS POI terminals that still use SSL or early TLS, and A3 only when a payment brand or acquirer requires it. Which requirements apply to you follows your validation type.