multiple websites "access denied" over verizon Fios network

spunkd13

My computer and other mobile devices are being denied access to certain mainstream websites ( costco ,homedepot, and many others).

Getting an access denied error message:

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.costco.com/" on this server.

Reference #18.7224c317.1711320893.8c17baf4

https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.7224c317.1711320893.8c17baf4

These sites work fine if I disconnect from my WIFI and just use my mobile network.

I see others have experienced the same issues but not seeing anything that solves this.

I rebooted router and ONT several times. Very frustrating.

Any help would be appreciated.

smith6612

Awesome, so we are getting somewhere now. The fact that the Akamai page is thinking your IP belongs to a Web Crawler gives us a starting point.

A web crawler can be thought of as a program which is designed to surf the web. Web crawling is what companies such as Google and Microsoft (Bing) do in order to produce a database of search results. Other times, crawlers can be used to archive information or save it for later use. Sometimes, crawlers can be unwanted because they are accessing too many resources at once, placing heavy loads onto websites. Or, crawlers may be blocked in an effort to protect copyrights or privacy.

What we need to figure out now is why Akamai thinks your IP belongs to a web crawler. There are a few things I would do here.

For each of your computers running Windows, and for your Android phones, I would do a bit of a security check-up just to make sure malware isn't the culprit here. On Windows, make sure you've got all of your Windows Updates in order. Here's a KB from Microsoft on how to update your system. If your Windows version is anything older than Windows 10, I would recommend exploring an upgrade path to something supported by Microsoft.

After making sure Windows is up to date, I would perform a malware scan. The best two tools to use for this are Windows Defender (built into Windows), along with MalwareBytes (Free edition for scanning) for a second opinion. Use both to scan for and remove any software they detect as malicious.

For your Android phones, the best thing to do here is to check the Google Play Store (or if you use a different app store, use that one), and ensure your applications are up to date. Google has something called Play Protect which can help identify any malicious applications and remove them.

If your devices seem clean, the next approach I would do is keep an eye on your IP address. Assuming you leave your router powered on all the time, your IP address should rarely change on Verizon FiOS. Take note of what your IPv4 address is when Akamai says your IP does not have a bad risk score, and then take note of what the IP address is when you do receive a bad risk score. Should the IP address remain the same when it switches between bad and good, then there's a good chance something on your network is making Akamai filter traffic. However, if the IP address is changing, then there is a good chance that whoever held the IP address previously, has something on their network which is flagging the IP address as a risk. Or perhaps it is an IP which keeps cycling through between you and others in the IP address pools, and there is a "bad" IP which needs to be cleared by Akamai.

Hope that all makes sense.

Another thing you can do to make sure something on your network (or your router for that matter) isn't exposing anything nasty to the Internet which is causing Akamai to flag the IP as bad, is run the GRC ShieldsUp test. The GRC ShieldsUp test will help scan your IP address for what we call "open ports" or "open services." To start a test, visit the link above, click Proceed, and then on the main page, choose the option to scan "All Service Ports." A good test should look something like this when it completes:

After using ShieldsUp, another resource I like to use is a service called Shodan. It is a service which allows you to see if your IP address ever operated a service. Using it is pretty simple. Obtain your IP address, then visit https://shodan.io and enter it into the Search box at the top of the page. Once you search your IP address, it may display information such as the ISP for the IP address, the location of the IP address, as well as any known services. If you get a "No Results Found" page, then the IP address has never exposed something that Shodan has encountered, which is a GOOD thing in this case.