RE: PCI DSS Compliance

["Sebastien Deleersnyder" <sebastien.deleersnyder () ascure com>]

Hi Ademar,

No, it is not stupid.

One of the requirements of a PCI DSS audit is that the company 
who has to perform the scan must be able to do this without being
blocked by IDS (=scan detection software).

The IDS should only be disabled for the scanning company, of course.

Other - more preferable - workaround is to test through a VPN tunnel
that bypasses the IDS, if your network set-up permits it. 
That way you do not have to add specific exclusion rules to the IDS
based 
on source IP addresses.

One can argue that the presence of IDS is part of the tested
infrastructure,
but Visa/Mcard wanted the scans to be performed without interference of
an
IDS system.
The goal is to test for vulnerabilities on the tested servers. An IDS
will 
result in a "distorted" view of the servers.
If the IDS became unavailable for some reason, the servers will become 
unprotected if they are not correctly patched and hardened.

Kind regards,

Seba

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ademar Gonzalez [mailto:ademar.gonzalez () gmail com] 
> Sent: dinsdag 13 december 2005 17:37
> To: webappsec () securityfocus com
> Subject: PCI DSS Compliance
>
> A shared hosting client needs to get his site PCI DSS certified.
> He forwarded us the following request from the company doing 
> the assessment.
>
> "Your site could not be certified. Your site appears to be 
> running scan detection software, that has prevented a 
> reliable port scan. This test is inconclusive. Please add our 
> scanner ip: ##.##.##.## to your scan detection software 
> exclusion list to allow our scanner to make a complete 
> assessment of your system."
>
> Is this request plain stupid or what ? Comments ?
>
> I have deal with this kind of requests in the past and most 
> of the time the people running this automated scans knows 
> nothing at all about security nor anything else and it 
> becomes a pain dealing with the client on one end that wants 
> his website certified and the other guy on the security 
> company that wants you to open your firewall so hi can run 
> his nmap or whatever it is they run. It looks like the client 
> runs the risk of not being certified 'cause his website is 
> over-protected. How would you proceed in this situation ?
>
>
> ciao ciao
> ademar