internet site access problem

I always access my credit card site routinely to check charges. Starting last friday, I can't pull up the site page. Intenet Explorer 8 just says "cannot display the webpage" and the diagnotic option is worthless (just says there's no problem with the connection). I called Citibank and their tech support person was just reading off instructions which only had me ck the cookies and clear the cache then they had no idea what else to do. I disabled windows firewall to see if that helped. It did not. I downloaded Firefox and tried it but that didn't help either (I use IE because my slow dialup service's accelerator is only configured to work with that browser). Any suggestions before I get aggravated enough to change credit card companies? The site is citicards.com which then goes to secure site credicards.citi.com. I can't understand why I've had no problems for years and now I do when I did nothing different and they claim they didn't make any changes.

 

if you try to go directly to https://creditcards.citi.com/ you do not connect to it? Can you access any other secure sites? https://encrypted.google.com/ or https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ ?

You could have port 443, the default for https:/ disabled in your router or modem or in your security suite.

Run updates for OS and security, scan and try again. Some security software won't let you make a secure connection if it's waiting to install an update or detects a portion of it is shut down. It's like a circuit breaker that won't let you out when you aren't secure.

If none of that helps, knowing your OS, you security apps and your connection type might help point to where to look.

 

Also, if you can't access any secure sites, check the date and time on your computer.

 

for issues you're describing, I'm had good luck with this tool from kaspersky;

take a look: http://blogs.computerworld.com/16691/kasperkys_tdss_killer_lives_on.