Spectrum ISP is blocking my site for being "a threat."

We're launching a new site but have stumbled upon an issue. Users who use Spectrum as their ISP are unable to fully navigate the site. Apparently, their ISP-provided router has a security feature called "Security Shield" which blocks sites that may "contain malware or steal user data."  Essentially, our site is being flagged as a Phishing site – which it is not.

The Security Shield feature can be disabled by each individual user, but that's not really a viable solution as I can't ask our users to put their computers at risk from other sites just to use ours, not to mention they may not know that's why the site is blocked.

Our service (installing real estate sign posts in the Orlando Florida market for realtors) is hyper local, and Spectrum serves thousands of homes exactly in the geographic area which we serve.

My store is set up to offer services – each of which include a custom form that collects data such as listing addresses, and info about the real estate agent. Could these forms be what Spectrum's security shield is detecting and flagging? Has anyone else had this issue?

This just started happening to my website as well. When I use Spectrum it gets blocked, but if I go onto another network it's fine.
 

Hi there, we purchased a domain and hosting via squarespace www.campyellowjackets.com (currently password protected) and some of our team is getting ISP block notices like attached. 

From what I can tell, the domain is getting blacklisted / blocked by ISPs? So I don’t know how we get it whitelisted or solve this issue.

Any help is appreciated! 

thank you!

42 minutes ago, KampGrizzly said:

From what I can tell, the domain is getting blacklisted / blocked by ISPs? So I don’t know how we get it whitelisted or solve this issue.

Please see my post above.

thanks for your help everyone! the larger issue is that I don't know what everyone's using service provider wise.. (it's being sent to a large group from all over the country) so many people will be needing to access this site. 

21 minutes ago, KampGrizzly said:

the larger issue is that I don't know what everyone's using service provider wise.

This shouldn't be an issue with most ISPs. This ISP just seems to be more cautious than most.

Thanks Paul! Is there any other solution than contacting every ISP? As It's more than just spectrum having this issue? Seems a bit extreme. 

I am getting your password field and I use Spectrum Business out of Tampa. I did not get any kind of warning at all. This could be caused by certain security software, or security software not up to date,  not the ISP, or a combination of the two; security software provided by the ISP.  I use Spectrum but do not use Security shield, my computers and smartphones are protected by Malwarebytes. 

thank you Derrick! I have some more info from our end.. 

I would let them know about the issue for sure.  I did find this which I suspect you did too:

https://www.abuseipdb.com/check/198.185.159.144 

Your campyellowjackets.com is hosted on squarespace but it is diverting to campyj.com which is hosted by godaddy.com? is this recent or has it been like that?  That could be part of this issue. As far as not being secure, that happens a lot if https is not part of the domain when entered in a browser. I don't know if that applies to your site, it was secure when I went to it. 

Also having this issue. Some people (presumably with Security Shield or workplace firewalls) are unable to access my site. I submitted a request to Spectrum to have the block removed and they replied that I wasn't blocked (even though I am) which gave me a complete dead-end on resolving it through them. Squarespace Help was unable to help as well. Seeing that this is a problem beyond just my domain, I'm hesitant to continue using Squarespace since I can't control which ISPs my clients use and I need them *all* to be able to access it. Grateful if anyone finds a real solution to this mess.

On 12/13/2022 at 2:44 PM, paul2009 said:

If you think your website has been blocked incorrectly, please complete and submit a request form to Spectrum to remove the block.

Did this help? Please give feedback by clicking an icon below  ⬇️

I am having the same issue as well.  This link that you have to submit the request form is not loading on the spectrum website.  Can you provide another link that will get me to the request form?

Thanks

Luke

I'm having the same issue with one of my client's sites and have been going around and around trying to figure out the root of it. It's maddening! The SSL and domain all look good and I can see the website fine on my end. The analytics show that a ton of people are still easily accessing the site. 

We eventually figured out that it was blacklisted on McAfee Antivirus so I submitted a request to unblock and they did right away. My client's customers kept sending her messages asking why the site was down even after that was done.

The domain is hosted on zenbusiness.com. During the launch, someone on the ZenBusiness side had to update the DNS settings since they don't allow outside editing. It turns out they had only added 1 of the A records so 3 were missing. I got excited that this was the root of the problem, but even after they added the missing A records, her customers continued to inform her that the site wasn't accessible. 

Then last week I actually changed my home internet from AT&T to Spectrum and all of a sudden I couldn't see the website. I was finally able to replicate the issue on my end. My husband checked on his office computer which uses Spectrum and he also couldn't access the site. Since we have both internet options at my home while we make the transition,  I switched back over to my AT&T internet and could see the site fine. You can look up if a site is blocked and request an unblock here: https://www.spectrum.net/support/forms/verify_url_security

I submitted a request and just received this back:

"We have reviewed and denied your request to unblock thefrench-farmhouse.com. We found this website to contain potentially harmful content. If you still want to visit this website, you can temporarily disable Spectrum Shield through My Spectrum App, although this action is not recommended."

What do I do now? How do I find out what is potentially harmful? I've never dealt with this before 😞

Hi there!

I am having a similar problem. Can you please let me know how you got it fixed?

Thanks!

I have a client who is also having the same issue and has tested their site on multiple devices in two separate spectrum-served households. I am assuming that anyone that has spectrum is not able to load the site due to this malware blocking sensitivity or whatever is happening. 

Anything we can do besides submit another request that will be denied? 

I have checked on the ssl and dns and everything looks like it's in order. She submitted an unblocking request and was denied. 

This is the site in question: https://www.lloydpottery.com/

I'm going to submit a help request and see how it goes. 

After talking with Spectrum, they said they were opening a ticket to explore this further, said they would call me back and then never got in touch with me again. It's an ongoing issue unfortunately. The bummer is that even if Spectrum resolved this, there are other people having the same issue with Cox internet. There must be something with the site that is triggering it to be flagged in a few places, but I have no idea what it could be 😞

OK so I'm trying to narrow down what variable could be causing the issue. I have couple sites that are almost identical so its possible that we might be able to see what it is about this site that is triggering spectrum to flag it as dangerous. 

The first thing that came to mind is that this site has a newsletter form that collects emails into a google spreadsheet. The other site that I am using as a comparison (because it loads with spectrum) has the exact same set up, so I'm ruling that out for now. 

The problem site domain is hosted by network solutions rather than squarespace which is who hosts the domain for the site that is loading fine. So I'm going to see if the site's perma link loads for the spectrum customer and if that loads then I'll know that the problem is with the domain provider. Will keep everyone updated. 

Awesome thank you @cami_leisk ! 

I spent a while on the phone with Spectrum and they said that there is potentially malicious software attached to the site. 

I checked the site (lloydpottery.com) on urlvoid.com  and found that 2 of the 40 third-party scanners flagged the site as being dangerous. When I checked the perma link (https://triceratops-finch-ad9c.squarespace.com) it's scan came back clean. So I followed that lead -- that it is an issue with the domain provider, Network Solutions. 

Network solutions said that because they don't host the site, they cant see where or what the malware is and to contact squarespace because it's not their fault essentially. 
SO - I've gone full circle and am beyond frustrated. I put in another email to squarespace about the whole situation. We'll see how it goes. 

yours in a circular hell where I have gotten nowhere, 

Cami

I suggest you move the domain to Squarespace, this should solve the issue. 

Here is the guide:

Transfer Network Solutions domain to Squarespace

@cami_leisk Appreciate the update and know that you aren't alone in circular hell hah. I just got off the phone with Cox and they said they can see that it's being blocked, but that they don't actually block sites on their end so there was nothing she could do. She did give me a few tools to check the health of the domain:

https://www.dnsqueries.com/

https://mxtoolbox.com/

Going to look into that. My site hosts it's domain with ZenBusiness and I've been worried that that might be the issue. I've almost transferred the domain to Squarespace a few times but Squarespace told me they couldn't promise that would resolve the issue and I was worried about down time for no reason. Might be the way to go. Appreciate your insight too @derricksrandomviews

Squarespace does not have a guide to specifically move a Zenbusiness domain but this should still point you in the right direction:

https://www.squarespace.com/blog/how-to-transfer-a-domain-to-squarespace

 and this may help as well:

https://help.zenbusiness.com/en/articles/6389792-can-i-transfer-my-domain-name-to-another-domain-registrar

Yeah I've been trying to avoid the downtime and moving the email hosting as well. 

I'll talk with the client about that as a solution. Thanks everybody. 

This may help you also, This letter is from Susana our Forum Admin at Squarespace. 

Hi everyone, 

I'd like to start by clarifying that when you transfer a domain to be hosted by Squarespace, this doesn’t automatically transfer your email hosting to Squarespace as well. Domain and email hosting are two different services. 

If you already have a custom email address setup for your domain, you can keep it with the company through which you set this service up if you would like. While transferring your domain to Squarespace you were given the option to transfer your email account’s MX records (the records responsible for handling your email), which allow you to keep using the email service. However, you will need to make sure that you keep the email service active with your provider, so you can be able to keep using it. As a note, if you keep the email service with them, you’ll still manage your email account with your original provider.

Before transferring your domain to Squarespace, we always recommend contacting your current email provider to ensure that there won’t be any restrictions or issues by moving to Squarespace. We also recommend backing up any essential emails, contacts, or settings you may need.

There might be some downtime on your email during the transfer. Check this FAQ on our help center more specifics. 

To stop using your email provider and move your email account to Squarespace, you can create a Google Workspace account that’s managed through your Squarespace site. This allows you to keep the same email address, but creates an entirely new account with new inboxes and billing managed by Squarespace. There are more details on this setup in this help article. 

For any further questions you might have about this, feel free to reach to Squarespace Customer Support for personalized assistance.