Spent an inordinate and infuriating amount of time faffing around with my anti-virus software which suddenly decided to stage a protest and refuse to download updates.
After much clicking, downloading, scanning and other general merriment, the issue seems to have been resolved. It might have been helpful to learn that a recent update is the likely cause of connectivity issues rather than spend four hours scanning almost half a million files for a malicious entity which did not exist.
Technical support - you suck. Royally. And with gusto.
The end.