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peterpr
Former Member
Message 1 of 15

McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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My site @ http://www.cominvest.org is flagged as a high risk malicious site despite not having any form of malicious code whatsoever.

http://www.mcafee.com/threat-intelligence/domain/default.aspx?domain=www.cominvest.org

The above link is telling me that it was last seen in 2009/2010 and that the site is of high risk. I only registered the domain a few months ago and am not associated in any way with the previous owner(s)

Furthermore, this is the only service that has the domain flagged, it has passed all the other testing through other reputable services.

While the site does focus on investment products, affiliate products; I do not sell anything, offer downloads, collect email addresses or personal information other than site statistics, statcounter, google, etc. I also use risk warnings when referring products. There is also no advertisement code on the site. It's a very clean, W3C validated site with nothing malicious on it whatsoever, as I said.

I take no issue with people saying it's just kind of like an affiliate site, that is what it is, the only issue I have is it being considered a malicious site of high risk. There certainly aren't any laws against affiliate marketing. I know that's not why the site is flagged.

1 Solution

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catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 2 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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,

                 Please refer to:  Perhaps someone with more knowledge will pick up this thread, and add to the discussion.

Edit: It may be appropriate to remove the possibly Malicious Link inserted.

Edited: By Catdaddy

All the Best,

Catdaddy

McAfee Moderator

Cliff
McAfee Volunteer

View solution in original post

14 Replies
catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 2 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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,

                 Please refer to:  Perhaps someone with more knowledge will pick up this thread, and add to the discussion.

Edit: It may be appropriate to remove the possibly Malicious Link inserted.

Edited: By Catdaddy

All the Best,

Catdaddy

McAfee Moderator

Cliff
McAfee Volunteer
peterpr
Former Member
Message 3 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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I don't know how to remove the link cause I can't edit the post, even if i could I need a way to point out what site I'm taking about.

It's not malicious. I'm not stupid. I'm not going to post a malicious link on the site asking to have the security block removed, my site never has been malicious. It's not compromised, all the scan tools I've used have shown nothing. I can say with 100% certainty that it's 100% safe to visit. Given that it's not a targeted audience here I doubt that anyone would, besides the people in charge.

catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 4 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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'

                Please know that I realize your frustration, and the reason I suggested the Link I gave you, is to assist you in possibly getting your Site Re-evaluated. We can only direct you to the proper steps to take in order for your issues to be resolved.

Wishing you all the very best,

Catdaddy

Cliff
McAfee Volunteer
peterpr
Former Member
Message 5 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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I have followed the steps. I'm not overly frustrated given that it's only McAfee that has the domain blacklisted, nothing else I can find. I understand and respect the service for taking measures to protect the internet. I've been infected by malware more than once myself. I'm certainly not going to rant against this service. However, each time a McAfee internet security user lands on my site they it is blocked, so each one of those visits is potential revenue lost. My biggest concern is just wanting to get the issue dealt with as soon as possible. Now that I've voiced my concerns and explained the situation, eg. I think it was blacklisted before I bought it or it's a false positive or something, I will wait for an official response.

catdaddy
MVP
MVP
Message 6 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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,

               As I mentioned earlier, it is quite possible that one of my Fellow Moderators .Whom is most knowledgeable in regards to such, will pick up this thread and add to the discussion. However, most likely is asleep at this time due to the Geographical Location.

               Again, I can appreciate your concern and wish you the very best.

Regards,

Catdaddy

McAfee Moderator

Cliff
McAfee Volunteer
Peacekeeper
Message 7 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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If you followed the dispute process via trusted source you should get this sorted in 2 days  ie

1) Browse to www.trustedsource.org/en/feedback/url

  1. Recommended for website owners or anyone else who wants to be updated on the request status: Create an Account and then Login
  2. Click on “Check Single URL” (since most re-evaluation requests would be for a single URL)
  3. Select the Product you are using – in our case choose “McAfee SiteAdvisor”
  4. Type in the URL you want to check
  5. Click “Check URL”
  6. Optional:  Choose up to 3 categories from the drop-down “Optional categorization suggestion:”
  7. Optional:  Leave an “Optional comment”
  8. Click “Submit URL for Review”
  9. If you created an Account (and logged in with it), a Ticket ID will be displayed, along with 3 options on when you will receive email (when the ticket is Open, Reviewed, or Closed)
Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 8 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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I've run some checks on the site and it does appear to be clean. Nonetheless, there may be a valid reason for that High Risk rating that McAfee is giving it. First, it's a "new" site - it was only registered at the end of June. I guess that you haven't re-submitted the site to SiteAdvisor for testing, which would automatically re-rate it afterwards - Green, hopefully.

I see you've posted a review on the SiteAdvisor page saying it's okay, but that won't affect the rating. If you go through the submission process you will see that there is an option for the site owner to make a statement about the site, which appears outside the usual list of reviews. That would be a better place for you to say that the site is safe.

The domain may still carry whatever reputation it gained when it was owned by whoever had it before - WhoIs has no information on the previous owner, everything was done through a protect-your-privacy outfit in Australia (which is somewhat suspicious). It was also a Parked Domain for a while, which might have caused it to be downrated by TrustedSource. Re-testing a previously-owned domain is always recommended.

You might also want to consider asking your hosting provider to get you off the server you're currently on. That IP address is not blacklisted, but you're sharing the server with about 480 other websites and some of them are risky or borderline domains. Porn sites are notorious for delivering malware, and the server appears to have more than its share of them. It's possible that your site's rating is being (or has been) adversely affected by one or more of those other sites, although I don't have the full list of the other 460 or so. Hphosts shows a slightly different subset of those sites (here).

cominvest sharing with all this lot.PNG

peterpr
Former Member
Message 9 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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I'm not overly concerned about the server if it isn't blacklisted. Plus, my domain isn't blacklisted anywhere else but McAfee. It's an adult allowed host so that would explain a lot of those sites. I chose it for the price at the time and had a great coupon.

If you notice on the link I posted in the first post, they only have DNS records for dreamhost.com and commerzbank.com (My DNS server is with sitevalley.com, which isn't listed). So it definitely appears like a previous owner of the domain  caused the issue. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that it was the previous owner hosting it with dreamhost.com that had the issue, as commerzbank is a reputable German company.

Anyway, I did submit it for reevaluation late last night, but it can take 3-5 business days, given that it was the weekend I'd expect it to take that long. I didn't bother to register before submitting the request so don't have a ticket I can track, but I am just kind of hoping they get the request and maybe in a few days it will be marked safe again. If not, I will pursue it further.

Hayton
Reliable Contributor
Reliable Contributor
Message 10 of 15

Re: McAfee blocking my domain due to previous owner?

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I agree that the most likely reason for the rating is something historical. SiteAdvisor rating information is just a snapshot of a site at a moment in time, and unless you have the site re-checked at regular intervals that information can become stale (and sometimes wrong). That's unavoidable, unfortunately. It's TrustedSource which is meant to give an up-to-date picture of a site's reputation based on warning indicators from multiple sources, and which then modifies a website's SiteAdvisor status (Green to Red/Amber).  Problem is, there's no automatic mechanism to revert to Green immediately when a problem has been fixed. I think a site so flagged gets re-checked from time to time, but at long intervals.

The previous owner may have been a victim of the 2012 hack against Dreamhost, which was said to have compromised a large number of sites.

As for the DNS information, that appears to have been updated everywhere (WhoIs returns the correct names) so it must be caused by a stale McAfee record for your site. Re-rating should correct that.

There are two things you need to do : to remove the Red rating (generated by TrustedSource, not SiteAdvisor) contact the TrustedSource team using the links already provided - this still leaves the site vulnerable to being re-flagged. Then re-submit the site through SiteAdvisor for a proper re-evaluation, which establishes the new baseline rating and provides all the extra information (links, downloads) on the SiteAdvisor rating page. You say you've submitted a request to one of them but haven't registered? I know that review requests to SiteAdvisor from anyone but the registered site owner get a very low priority, and TrustedSource won't notify you of progress unless you open a TrustedSource account and get a ticket.

There's only one other thind I noted, and it's not a site problem but something for your ISP - a warning from hphosts about a pointer record not resolving to an IP address. It's only minor, but it may affect the way the DNS information is displayed.

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