Topic: News - Spammers are hitting hard

[Jim]

It appears that the spammers have stepped up efforts to spam SMF forums in the last couple of days.  We have had a few attempts at hacks but nothing has got through so far.  On some of the other SMF forums the spammers are getting by the CAPTCHA, image verification as well as the email verification.  Thank goodness we have not had any of those.

If you see a post from a new member that the member name is nothing but a bunch of characters, please click the report to moderator button so one of the staff can react as soon as we are notified.

I can't see what enjoyment these folks get out of spamming forums. 

[Triss]

They must be stuck inside like us this wek with the nasty weather.  I hope it passes quickly.

[Jim]

I'm thinking that the reason I am seeing more traffic about the spammers is because it was posted on several hacker and warez sites that there was a vulnerbility in SMF 1.1.6.  I guess they now search for SMF forums and try to hit them all.  It's interesting that it occurred right as the 1.1.7 upgrade came out.

Some of the SMF forums didn't use email validation so they were getting 10-15 spammers registering a day.  So far we have been lucky and not had anything like that.

[Jim]

So far we have only had one spammer get registered.  If you logged on last night you saw them as the latest member.  I set some things so they wouldn't be able to post if they activated.  They did so about 2:30 this morning and attempted to post a number of times.  After some research, I deleted the account.

I think we have been fortunate in that we have an age restriction set.  This tends to slow down the spambots.  Anyway things are starting to slow down a bit and it looks like SMF has survived another spambot attack.  On to the next one...

[Jim]

Had another spammer join tonight.  Funny thing, was from the same IP as the first one so immediately was banned from posting.  They did add something about Cialis in the signature before I hit the delete button.  I guess they will continue to try.

[Triss]

Good thing you caught him early.

[Dianna]

"Latvia", our spammer, was back here this morning as a guest. I am hoping that he decided that there is no use in registering here again...

[Jim]

The problem is it could be a bot so there's no thought process to modify from past experience. 

I increased the level to the highest possible for the visual verification and that still may not stop them.  There are some other things I can do but for now I think we can deal with them the way we have been. 

[wimc]

Few days ago was getting 16 spam registrations within 30 minutes time, changed the registration policy and took measures of making my forum spam free.

[Jim]

We were pretty good when the big attack started.  We have always required email validation, and always had an age requirement so I think that kept the majority out.  We did have 2 that registered and validated but I had already blocked them from posting and then just deleted.  I followed the things going on pretty close on SMF.

[wimc]

Still see the same IP's trying to register, they won't get far.

Don't know about you, it was more of an annoyance to me.

[Jim]

Yep, it has definitely slowed down now.  I've got registration set to approval now so I look at each potential member.  With the size that I deal with, that will work till they get tired and then I'll move it back to the way we used to have it.  I imagine that would really be an annoyance on a large forum that gets 10 to 20 new members a day.  We don't have to worry about that for now.

[Jim]

Thought I would bump this topic as the spammers have renewed their efforts lately.  This is not automated spam this time though, its people that are spamming.  They are probably getting paid by the number of hits they get on a link they post.

We even had the famous "krisbarteo" join today.  This person is responsible for the latest hacking of some SMF forums.  I guess he/she thinks it's cool because they are still using the same name. 

If you are currently running a SMF forum, turn off the uploading of avatars to your server, disable the uploading of attachments, and take away the option for members to change themes.  This is a temporary fix.  Rest assured that the SMF team is working hard to get out a permanent fix for this situation.

If you happen to run across a post that you think is from a spammer that I may have mistakenly approved, click the report to moderator link and one of the staff will take care of it.