Establish the scope
A 403 means the request was refused, but the response can come from a CDN, WAF, web server, security plugin or application. Record the full path without secrets, time, affected user and public IP. Determine whether only one network, one account, wp-admin, or the entire site is affected.
Keep a second authorized administrative access path available before changing firewall or access rules. A denial on an intentionally protected endpoint may be correct; confirm the user and request should have access.
Compare evidence at each layer
Look for a matching WAF event and note its rule, action and request ID. If no edge event is present, check web-server access and error logs, virtual-host configuration and any directory access rules. Compare the response headers and body with a known blocked request, but do not treat a header alone as proof of the source.
Review the web server's ability to traverse the required directories and read application files. Ownership, access-control lists and mandatory access controls can matter as well as mode bits. Do not apply world-writable permissions or change ownership recursively without understanding the deployment model.
Make the smallest correction
If a security rule is a false positive, test an exception for the specific verified rule and route where supported. If a site rule is wrong, save a reversible copy and validate the configuration before reloading the server. Confirm that login and administration work for the authorized user while an unauthorized request remains denied.
Document the actual blocking layer, change, expiry for any exception and a follow-up review. If compromise is suspected, preserve evidence and use the incident process instead of simply unblocking the source.
Further reading
Read the official documentation. For help applying these checks, explore Clouvenix services.