Private Internet Access blocked

[Mookerific]

I am also having this issue. I apologize, but am I correct that it appears the only response is to "get another VPN" or is there someone at MalwareBytes willing to help troubleshoot this issue for me? I am a loyal MalwareBytes customer from back when licenses were lifetime, and have referred many many people to MWB, but I am starting to get frustrated at this problem as it appears from my own googling and reviews from other threads in this forum that (i) this is a well-known issue and (ii) there doesn't seem to be any real solution.

Can someone kindly help?

[Porthos]

1 hour ago, Mookerific said:

is there someone at MalwareBytes willing to help troubleshoot this issue for me?

It is not the Malwarebytes program. Some VPN's are using blocked IP's for their connections that have been used to to preform web brute force and other web attacks and those IP's are blocked for that reason.  Malwarebytes web protection is protecting its users from attacks from those blocked IP's.

It is a good chance criminals are using the VPN's to attack others.

You can still use VPN and just turn of the notifications in Malwarebytes so you do not see the popups.

Other than having the blocked IP addresses so they can possibly be unblocked, there is not much Malwarebytes can do about the blocks.

 

 

[forgetmenaut]

It would be really great if Malwarebytes could at least add a setting to segregate out IP warnings ("Website blocked due to malware" so we can disable only those tray popups without having to compromise every other notification. The solution to disable all warnings is a bit heavy-handed. This is a recurring problem and there are many dead-end threads on this forum without a practical solution that doesn't castrate Malwarebytes. I don't want to have to choose between turning off all notifications or abandoning either Malwarebytes or Private Internet Access.

Surely a slight addition to the notification filtering could provide a resolution that would make a lot of customers happy with minimal effort from MBAM's team?

[AdvancedSetup]

Ignoring or blocking such alerts is not a good practice. I just helped someone recently and it sure looks like ignoring alerts is what helped allow their system to get attacked. Had they stayed on top of it and investigated the alerts they could have stopped things before it escalated.

I know it can be annoying and I believe they are adding at least some more granularity to this feature in a future version but we'll have to wait and see what they add.

Thank you

 

[RSJ69]

Wow, I see this is still an ongoing issue, but why does this issue not happen with other AV products? I'm running Bit Defender and I never have issues with it flagging on PIA IPs.  Turning off notifications is a big no-no and I cannot believe someone would even recommend that. I guess I'll check back periodically, but until this issue is addressed and fixed I'll be turning off Malwarebytes and putting a pause on renewing. 

 

[AdvancedSetup]

I have no idea what Bitdefender does. We use many different methods and resources trying to locate and prevent sites that may potentially harm your system.

I'd recommend that you go ahead and submit for a refund now. We will not be lowering the protection for our customers simply because it sometimes flags IPs from PIA.

Consumer Support
https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Thank you @RSJ69

[djanimate]

Hmm, having this same issue as well and I guess the only solution is to get a refund. Lost a customer for sure then, hopefully many others will follow suite which may send a message. I could see if we were running something sketchy and not wanting to "lower the protection", but we are running a VPN service. I guess you'll either lose enough customers to do something about it, or it will never get resolved. 

[Porthos]

32 minutes ago, djanimate said:

having this same issue as well

You are posting to a year-old topic, is your issue with PIA?

[djanimate]

Porthos, Yes, I know the thread is old, but this thread is still open unlike the first one I found. Yes, it's an issue with my PIA. When the firewall is turned off, as necessary with some sites as they block VPN subnets, I start getting popups that last until I connect via the VPN again. Sometimes they are back to back and some times they are every minute or two. I normally stay connected to the VPN so it's not an issue then, but today I was shopping on Samsung.com and had to leave the VPN off and was bombarded to the point of being so frustrated I started google searching. I then read the comment above of Malwarebytes support suggesting we get a refund as opposed to actually fixing the problem, so that is my intension.  I have already contacted support to get that process started. 

Detection hostory.docx

[Porthos]

If you are going to stick with PIA and not take advantage of Malwarebytes VPN then I hate to say a refund will be the best bet if it is not the refund deadline.

Please refer to this support article which lists several known applications which conflict with the Web Protection in Malwarebytes currently, which includes Private Internet Access.

For a refund,

Please contact our support team at https://support.malwarebytes.com/hc/en-us/requests/new to get a refund.

Please submit only one ticket/request. Additional tickets will increase the delay.

Be advised it can take 3-7 weekdays for a response after the automated reply with your ticket number.

[djanimate]

Thanks for the information Porthos. Support has gotten back to me. Their suggestion was to turn off all alerts, my reply is below. As far as I'm concerned, we have come to an understanding. 

" Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I was aware of disabling the notifications to get rid of the PIA caused messages, but it also blocks all other messages. As an IT security professional, I know this is not a satisfactory fix and essentially a band aid. 
  A real fix would be the ability to disable all messages for a particular application, whether it be for the PIA program, or something else such as a game. This would allow someone to shut off known safe messages, while being notified of other events that may be dangerous. 
  I can appreciate your 60 day policy, that is fair. My only course of action is to just not renew the product, so I have shut that off. In addition, this will affect my decision to recommend your product to others. Which I have done countless times over the years. You may now close this case. "

[Porthos]

@djanimate

You could add the PIA exe to Play Mode to suppress just the alerts from only PIA

[djanimate]

1 hour ago, Porthos said:

@djanimate

You could add the PIA exe to Play Mode to suppress just the alerts from only PIA

I had looked at that, but it appears that it shuts down all messages while the defined app is running. Considering the PIA app is always running, that is no different than just turning off the alerts altogether. Unless I'm misunderstanding it. 

[Porthos]

5 minutes ago, djanimate said:

Considering the PIA app is always running,

I did not consider that. Have you considered the Malwarebytes VPN instead?

[djanimate]

2 hours ago, Porthos said:

I did not consider that. Have you considered the Malwarebytes VPN instead?

I have not. The reason is that PIA allows port forwarding, which one of my applications takes advantage of. As far as I can tell, MalwareBytes VPN does not support it. PIA also runs on open-source software with 100% transparency. It has ran absolutely flawless the entire time I've run it (about a year now). Lastly, PIA is the same cost (for a yearly subscription) of a single user license of MalwareBytes, but PIA allows unlimited devices.  

[AdvancedSetup]

Malwarebytes is actually doing it's job. When an IP is reached that is part of a known malicious activity it reports via alerts. All other antivirus products "should" be doing the same thing.

This block could happen with any VPN as criminals also use VPN services. It's just that PIA happens to have perhaps a bit more networks with illegal activity than some other VPN providers.

Once in a while even our own VPN gets a block due to the nature of blocking potentially dangerous activity.