UPDATE: THE ERROR SEEMS TO BE FIXED! At least on my end. If you get the erroneous Safebrowse warning, can you contact me via FB or my shop and let me know? Thanks!
I reference my own blog almost every day when I grab helpful links to send my customers. Imagine my surprise on Tues May 18th when suddenly I got the above intimidating screen (in several languages) from a URL called safebrowse.io when I loaded it on my Mac. Panic immediately set in. Had my blog been hacked? What was going on?
As you might imagine, I started researching and testing immediately. I spent all day on it and reached out to a lot of my friends to help me test it. Here's what I figured out:
- Safebrowse.io is a legit policing service used by Xfinity (my internet provider).
- It was flagging my blog for no apparent reason.
- My blog was not flagged on any other internet provider or cellular service that I could see. Non-Xfinity users and anyone using cellular data could access it just fine.
- Not all Xfinity wifi users were getting the same screen, but everyone who got the screen was an Xfinity user.
- If we turned off the Advanced Security Filter on our router, voila, the problem was solved. If we turned it back on, the flag appeared again.
- The problem seemed to be with the Xfinity advanced security algorithm or blacklist.
Obviously, asking my customers to click 'proceed anyway' after getting a malicious site warning is not an option. Neither is telling them to take their security fence down on their router just to reach my site. Unacceptable.
After two long phone calls with Xfinity support, they told me that my blog was erroneously flagged in a recent security update which referenced certain server ports. This has presumably affected way more websites than just my own. They tell me their engineers are aware of my issue and are working to solve it.
I'm currently waiting for them to whitelist my poor ol' innocent blog (which is a legit web site on the internet since 2008). Today is the fourth day it's been held hostage by Xfinity, scaring my visitors and ruining the reputation of my business.
HURRY UP, XFINITY.
If you are an Xfinity user, obviously you won't be seeing this post. If you did, I'd tell you a good workaround during this time to reach my blog is to turn off the wifi service on your device and access it via cellular service using the usual link:
this post came up ok for me I was getting a similar thing happen when I went to a different blog - different sort of message but it was on blogger
ReplyDeleteHello, we have a website for our bakery, same thing happening with site being blocked for some users. What was the result of your fix? It’s almost an Xfinity issue for us, and asking customers to disable their safe browsing doesn’t seem likely or reasonable. Please help!
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to contact Xfinity customer support and report the problem. For me, Xfinity must have finally taken my blog off their black list or updated their security parameters. I had to call their support line several times and escalate the call to their techie guys. It was eventually resolved by them. A short term fix for your customers is to ask them to access your site with LTE or Data and not via wifi.
DeleteThank you for posting your experience - I’m stuck in a horrendous loop with xfinity because I’m not a customer they flat out refuse to assist in anyway - one of the many CSR/tech support reps/advanced security reps I spoke to *actually* suggested that I have each and EVERY customer/visitor to my site contact them directly to have their individual browser settings modified to allow navigation to my site. If you or any of your visitors have ANY advice or suggestions on what to do next, please post!
ReplyDeleteReally sorry, Jaime. It's maddening. My only suggestion is to pester Xfinity until it's resolved and perhaps ask your customers to access your site via LTE or Data and not Wifi. Not great, but it's something.
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