Spam Attack

[KountryKamper]

I would say we have a little bit of a spam problem this morning. :-(

[MDuncan]

Yeah... Looks like the spammers work weekends lol... they have been removed.

[KountryKamper]

Here they are again. :-(

[topgun2]

WOW! Right you are - were. Looks like Jason and/or Matt got on it and things are getting back to normal.

 

Bill

[Mainiac]

They are back. Hopefully not coming through that "backdoor" that was used?

 

[Mike and Carol]

The spammer is now banned. The posts have been removed. Not sure how they are getting in. Mike

[SeaDawg]

Canoe12, that back door is only open to mods on mobile devices.

I missed the whole thing... Busy today. Thanks, Matt and Jason.

Sherry

[MDuncan]

Had another attack this morning. They can register as anyone else can. New users are required to activate their account by clicking a link in their email, which tells me that it most like a human and not a bot doing it. If it continues we will tighten up the spam controls.

[topgun2]

I just deleted another half dozen spam postings! These guys are ridiculous!

Bill

[Rumline]

Back when I ran a small forum 10+ years ago I had to battle with the spammers. Eventually I realized that most of the spam traffic came from Russia, Africa, or South America. The website had no need to reach folks outside of the US or Canada so I blocked the entire Class A and/or B networks belonging to countries outside of North America. Cut the spam overnight by 99%.

 

That might not work here since this is a business but just trying to help.

 

FYI requiring users to follow a link in an e-mail will not stop all bots from registering. It definitely helps but as we are seeing, not necessarily enough.

[MDuncan]

The website had no need to reach folks outside of the US or Canada so I blocked the entire Class A and/or B networks belonging to countries outside of North America. Cut the spam overnight by 99%.

 

Yes we will probably implement blocking IP addresses outside US & Canada.. or maybe specific countries. If they are on a proxy server they can hide their actual location and be where ever they want to be. We will get it worked out.

 

Did anyone receive spam emails from the spammers? Probably Microsoft or Norton Security related. If so, please private message me and I'd like to have it forwarded to me. Thanks!

[ShallowGal]

Matt, just a few minutes ago I was replying to a post where i quoted kayrae & inserted a jpeg. Before submitting, I noticed several norton terms were in the Tags field. (I deleted them.) I dont know if that means anything behind the scenes but FYI, in case it does.

[JWalmsley]

I removed those tags. Thanks for letting us know @shallowgal.