How do I get Websense to stop blocking my website?

June 2, 2014 12:49 PM

My company website is being blocked by Websense on the grounds that it is a compromised website that *may* contain malware. The webhost assures us that there is no malicious code, and we've run several other scans that say the same thing. There are four links at issue, and they just redirect within the site. This is a problem because our largest client uses Websense filtering, and none of them can see our website. Websense won't even talk to me because I'm not a Websense client. Have any of you encountered this issue before or have any ideas on how to resolve it?
posted by crankylex to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Internal IT at the client should be able to put in an exception without having to rely on Websense to take any action. Failing that I do not think there is much you can do without eliminating the links or functionality that appear to be causing the false positive. You could potentially sniff for your client's gateway IP addresses and disable that functionality just for them if it's not mission critical.
posted by rocketpup at 1:05 PM on June 2, 2014

Do you run adverts on your website? From which network?
posted by devnull at 2:12 PM on June 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

I don't live in the U.S. and I am often baffled by the "let's sue" mentality ... However, trying to think in those terms: given that websense (which I do not know) implies that your company's website *may* contain malware, perhaps a letter from your legal department stating that this is essentially libel and damaging to your company's reputation, requesting that this stops otherwise a lawsuit will follow might do the trick...
posted by aroberge at 3:49 PM on June 2, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: We don't run ads at all.

We ended up getting the client's IT department to make an exception, which they were thankfully willing to do. I'm just a little amazed that there is no avenue available to contact Websense directly in these types of situations.

Thanks for the suggestions!
posted by crankylex at 8:56 AM on June 3, 2014