I get the message that my files might contain phishing content

Hello all,

I do not normally reach out to the community, but I am having a reoccurring issue where I receive an "banned member" notification. After going to the Dropbox website and attempting to share a link to the file I just created, I receive a "Can't share file. We've interrupted your sharing activity because your files might contain phishing content" notification. Typically this is resolved in a few business days after emailing Dropbox support. Due to the nature of my work, every day counts and having to wait days to get this issue resolved hinders my productivity and work. I do not have, share, or support any type of phishing content. The overwhelming majority of files I share are PDF plans for civil construction. I typically run Windows Defender antivirus scans on them and have never receiving any malware/virus threat results of any kind. I am unsure of the proprietary scanning programs used by Dropbox, but it definitely appears to be overzealous with this reoccurring issue. It would be great if Dropbox would lockdown the individual file that it is flagging instead of banning my sharing ability all together as it often is flagging older files (even though it is for no reason at all and the files do not contain anything that violates policy or phishing of any kind).

As I'm sure you can imagine, this is quite irritating. My work revolves around collaborating with other companies on civil construction plans. Dropbox has been an integral tool to do this for a long time. I need a solution for avoiding these false flags from their automated system. Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated.

Hey FrequentUser, I hope you're doing well! 

Sorry to hear about that. Do you have an open ticket with our Support at the moment, or would you like for me to reach out via email, in order for us to have a closer look? 

Let me know more! 

Thank you for your reply, I hope you are doing well too.

I do have an open ticket with Support, ticket#23563687. I was more looking for a tip on how to avoid my files being falsely flagged for something they do not contain. Previously, support simply asks me to delete files to lift the ban. This is a "Bandaid" fix, not a solution. If someone could take a closer look to resolve the reoccurring issue, I would appreciate it.

Hey FrequentUser, thanks for the ticket number reference! 

You can have a more thorough look into this article. 

And I'd also suggest that you directly ask the agent working on your case, to share some additional info with you. 

Keep in mind that your links can be banned for one of the following reasons: 

-The link or request generated a large amount of traffic.
-The link or request was flagged due to the presence of malware.
-The link or request exceeded our bandwidth or download limits.

Thank you for the information.

I have directly asked previously and did not receive a direct answer. The answer I received was a generic response similar to "might contain phishing content" and to scan the files prior to sharing.

-The files are only shared with a handful of other people via links and I doubt more than 10 people look at them.
-The files do not contain malware to the best of my knowledge as I scan using Windows Defender.
-The files are typically only around 20 MB in size and are PDFs that have been shared with me from other file sharing means.

I may be making a mistake of some kind, but I have read through several community posts & Drop box help pages and I do not believe the issue is on my end.

I see where you're coming from FrequentUser. 

However, in order for me to be able to share more, I'd need to have some account-specific info on my end, in order to determine what might have caused it. 

Thus why I believe it's best to ask our Support about this. I'm also going to be leaving an internal comment to your Support ticket, in order to ask the user working on your case to share some additional info with you. 

Hi - 

Has this been resolved? I am having the same issue and can't figure out how to get it fixed. 

T

Hey Tricia Greeley, since this issue requires account specific info, can we send you an email to investigate further?

We have been suddenly getting this message when trying to share various folders in our Dropbox.  

"Can't Share file. We've interrupted your sharing activity because your files might contain phishing content."

We have waited 24+ hours to see if this resolves and it is not. and we have the need to share files asap.

Since there is literally no way to talk to or email anyone at Dropbox, what are our next steps?

Thank you,

Michelle

Thanks for reaching out to us, mtepper.

Can we actually send you an email, so we can take a closer look into this for you?

Let me know!