Security Metrics PCI Scan Failed Inconclusive

I recently had an issue in which one of my clients was failing PCI compliance scans from Security Metrics. This was out of the blue as the site was passing the same scans with a 0 listed for vulnerabilities. Shortly after receiving the failed report I called their support department and just got the run around. Seems they cannot speak about routers, types of routers, routers failing, or even to recommend a brand name that does not have issues.

I kept banging my head against a brick wall with there support department so I had to take it on myself.
I had a Netgear ProSafe firewall in place that used to pass so this seemed odd that it suddenly started failing. After i ordered a new upgraded Netgear ProSecure UTM firewall and installing it i ran the scans again and guess what I failed again! This was seriously odd as the ProSecure specificly states that it is PCI compliant and built for that purpose.

So either the Scanning company Security Metrics is messed up or i need to figure out how to Whitelist their Scanners IP.

I have dealt with Sonicwall, Cisco, Netgear, Dlink, Linksys, and Belkin routers in the past and none of them seem to offer the ability to bypass the IPS system. This seemed even odder to me as that is what they are telling me I need to do to get the scan to complete.

So after just throwing up my hands and turning off the IPS, was the scan able to complete and get me a passing grade.

They tell me this is the only way to assure that i am hacker safe but is turning off the IPS really the only way and it seems i am lowering my security to get them satisfied and then turning it back on to be safe.

Not sure who came up with that rule but they seriously did not think it through.

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