This page contains all current information on the status of this incident.
| Incident Details | |
|---|---|
| Incident Status | closed |
| Services Impacted |
Web Filtering
|
| Start Time | 2018-04-27 10:00 BST |
| End Time | 2018-11-08 14:00 GMT |
| Description | Users being presented with Google reCAPTCHA prompts again. TWS IT are investigating and raising with Google. If presented with a reCAPTCHA prompt, please complete it. You may be presented with many pages of images to be successful. Multiple failures to complete the process contributes to the issue. As a workaround, please use other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, etc. IT Admins, please ensure that no VPNs are in use on your network (e.g. Hola). |
| Incident Updates | |
|---|---|
| Time | Detail |
| 2018-04-30 15:42:39 BST | no further reports today. Further firewall rules have been implemented while we await a response from Google. Please do let the Helpdesk know if there are further reCaptcha sightings |
| 2018-05-03 08:50:17 BST | We believe the HOLA traffic has now been blocked. However, our main external IP still has a poor reputation with Google. We will be switching to 195.246.108.137 to allow .20 to recover. This will also allow us to test whether the blocking of the HOLA traffic has been successful. If you have any external services that require our external IP, please update them. |
| 2018-05-08 14:00:27 BST | further reports of the captcha are being seen today. Further investigations taking place. |
| 2018-05-11 13:25:27 BST | No further reports in the last couple of days - Google have asked that if further issues are seen you report them to our Helpdesk and advise the time/date and version of the web browser being used if possible. E.g. Chrome version 66. |
| 2018-05-15 15:55:02 BST | After a few days of no reports we have again had sightings today. As per previous message Google have asked that if further issues are seen you report them to our Helpdesk and advise the time/date, IP address and version of the web browser being used if possible. E.g. Chrome version 66. |
| 2018-05-18 12:00:49 BST | we have now had some initial feedback from Google and provided further information for them to consider. Unfortunately progress is slow due to the fact that we are liaising with a team in California. |
| 2018-06-05 12:00:36 BST | We have changed our external IP address back to 195.246.108.20. We are still waiting for further feedback from Google (via a 3rd party) Unfortunately there is no further news at this point. |
| 2018-06-20 09:17:10 BST | Information supplied by Google has allowed us to make some specific configuration changes to Chromebooks on our network, however we are not confident that these changes will resolve the issue. We have asked for further evidence from Google via our 3rd party to allow us to further investigate their theory. In the meantime please do continue to advise the Helpdesk as and when you see the Recaptcha so that we can demonstrate the issue still exists to Google. |
| 2018-06-28 09:42:27 BST | Further sightings yesterday (27/6) These have been reported to Google. Note some users are seeing 403 Forbidden errors as well which is related. |
| 2018-07-12 15:47:34 BST | Further issues reported today. We have been reassured by our intermediary that Google are having information fed into them and are still investigating (slowly) |
| 2018-09-11 12:19:22 BST | Unfortunately this issue has reappeared today (Tuesday 11th Sept). From speaking to potential new filtering suppliers it is clear that Google do not have any real customer service team that look after the Google Search and so this is making progress difficult. We are continuing to record events and providing data in the hope that progress will be made. We will make some progress at the end of the year/start of the new year when we implement a new filtering solution - at this point various network design changes will also be made. The combination of the two should have some impact. |
| 2018-09-13 09:26:58 BST | Our external IP address was changed yesterday afternoon (Wed 12th) as we were still seeing issues. |
| 2018-09-18 11:53:08 BST | Google Captcha seen again. We are monitoring and will change our external IP at an appropriate time later today. (If we do it too soon we may end up seeing the Captcha on both old and new IP addresses.) |
| 2018-09-25 15:50:20 BST | Further reports of Captcha seen today (25/9). |
| 2018-10-24 09:21:51 BST | After several weeks of not seeing the reCaptcha, it was seen again on Tues 23/10/18. Please let us know if you see this and depending on volumes we will consider changing our IP address again. |
| 2018-11-08 14:30:57 GMT | We are aware that Google recaptcha has now moved to version 3 which may mean issues we've seen won't occur anymore as it will work differently In any case this issue has not been seen now for a number of weeks We are working with netsweeper to ensure further changes are implemented with the new filtering system so that this issue is less frequently seen. Further advice will be issued. |