xFi Advanced Security blocking sites

Try contacting the reps on this team;

Comcast Customer Security Assurance.

Business Hours: 6:00am - 2:00am EST, 7 days a week

Contact: 1-888-565-4329

Follow-up to my 9 November post:  Regarding my problem with xFi Advanced Security blocking my access to Ancestry.com, on 10 Nov I called Comcast Customer Security Assurance for help, per advice from this discussion thread.  The woman there was very polite, listened carefully, and recorded my problem in a new escalated trouble ticket, stating I would get a return phone call.  I turned off xFi Advanced Security so I could once again access Ancestry.com.

In about 6 hours I received a call from Comcast Security.  They wanted me to open a command window and run a traceroute and nslookup demonstrating the problem.  I turned xFi Advanced Security back on, and in the six hours since I had disconnected it from my account Comcast had removed the blockage to Ancestry.com.  I told the rep that I would have to reproduce the problem in order to give him the results.  He gave me a customer service e-mail address and the trouble ticket number (IH127956892) for my response.

At 9:30 p.m. 10 Nov  I began downloading my large 58,826 person family tree from Ancestry.com to Family Tree Maker on my desktop.  At 12:09 a.m. 11 Nov, xFi Advanced Security once again blocked my access to Ancestry.com, sending me a notification that my desktop was involved in a "Target Network Attack" on 45.60.63.104 (Ancestry.com).  Actually, my desktop was still in the middle of my family tree download, having downloaded 28,045 of the 40,966 media items attached to my family tree, and Family Tree Maker was still trying to download the rest of the media files when xFi Advanced Security blocked me.  As before, I could no longer access Ancestry.com from my desktop, laptop, iPad, or mobile phone on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari.  So I prepared an e-mail for Comcast with the following three attachments: (1) a screen shot of the time-stamped "Threat Warning" noting my desktop was purportedly involved in a denial-of-service attack against 40.60.63.104 (Ancestry.com); (2) a screen shot of a 30-hop traceroute to Ancestry.com (first hop was to my modem/router at 10.0.0.1, and the other 29 hops timed out with destination unreachable, and an nslookup showing Ancestry.com was at 45.60.63.104 and 45.60.108.104; and (3) a screenshot from https://downforeveryoneormustme.com showing that the Ancestry.com website was up and running, and it was just down for me.  I sent the e-mail at 2:19 a.m. 11 Nov.

Yesterday I called Comcast to get a status report.  The customer service rep stated that Comcast usually responds in 48 to 72 hours.  It has now been more than three days since I provided the requested information to Comcast on my escalated problem, and I have not heard back from Comcast.

Of course, I have turned off xFi Advanced Security so that I can continue to use Ancestry.com without being blocked.  I routinely download information from Ancestry.com to Family Tree Maker, so it is a huge inconvenience for them to continually block my access claiming that I might be involved with some bogus, nefarious denial-of-service attack.  I do not intend to turn xFi Advanced Security back on until Comcast can assure me that they have resolved this problem with their software.  I guess we'll see if I hear back from them.

@SwChappell 

Have you contacted that team ?

Yes, I contacted them and gave them all the information from the three times that xFi Advanced Security has blocked my ancestry.com access (see my two long posts on this thread).  It has been almost 4 days since I sent them a traceroute and nslookup that they requested, and I've had no further response.  I also just saw a thread on the Family Tree Maker Facebook page where others are reporting being blocked from just ancestry.com on all devices (just like us), and lots of experts trying to understand and troubleshoot the cause.  I made a post there as well, in case xFi Advanced Security is also causing their problem.  I included the xFi Customer Security Assurance phone number there, in case others are having the same problem.  We'll see.

No, I haven't contacted them yet. My experience with them in the past has been relatively poor, and I'm not really sure it's worth the hassle for me to be able to use Advanced Security. I have enough additional security in software and devices that I'm not sure what it's buying me, anyway.

Today is 18 November 2020, and it has been one week since I provided Comcast Customer Security Assurance with all the additional information they requested to look into the problem of xFi Advanced Security blocking my access to Ancestry.com (45.60.63.104) when I do a sync of my family tree at Ancestry.com with my Family Tree Maker software (something I do routinely, without problems before Comcast turned on xFi Advanced Security around the beginning of November 2020).  I was told by two different customer reps at Comcast Customer Security Assurance that I would be contacted in about 48 to 72 hours.  That has not happened.  I've heard nothing in over a week.  Is this typical of the customer service with this group?

CONCLUSION:  After waiting 8 days for a response from Comcast Customer Security Assurance (a response two different reps said I would get in 48 to 72 hours), I called Comcast to get an update on what they were doing to solve the problem of xFi Advanced Security blocking my access to Ancestry.com when doing a sync or download of a large family tree from Ancestry.com to my Family Tree Maker software.  The Level 2 technician said that if I wanted to continue to use my Family Tree Maker software, I would have to turn off xFi Advanced Security.  He said that they are unable to modify their security product in order to solve this problem.  I'm not sure if Comcast is "unable" or "unwilling" to make such a change, but the bottom line is they do not intend to fix the problem.  So, if anyone else is having this problem, don't bother calling Comcast because they will not provide any assistance.  Just take their own advice and abandon their security product.

I asked the technician if he had any advice about protecting my computers, since Comcast is removing their free access to Norton products at the end of the year, and I could no longer use Xfinity's xFi Advanced Security--the only other option Comcast provides.  His response was that I would have to acquire my own antivirus capability.  At least he was honest, even if it isn't the most customer friendly advice.

That is pretty much what I expected. If there were a way to whitelist, they'd have provided the capability in the software, or a faq to provide the process. I've worked in infosec, unbelieveable that a product wouldn't provide such a basic control.

As far as Norton products, I abandoned them years ago. I've been using Bitdefender for the past few years and been pretty happy with it. These days, there are a lot of good products out there, and many better than what used to be the big two (Norton and McAfee). Good luck with it.

I am now having this issue. How did your turn off the xFi advanced security? And did this only happen while syncing to family tree maker or will it also block Ancestry after my tree finishes downloading?