SPAM! It's Everywhere!

Since the 1st of the year, I have gotten more spam in my email and spammers trying to sign up on the old forum I'd say about 800% more than usual

Anyone else having this issue?

Yes -so true!! i have to also run my 4 antivirus programs every day -just to keep the cookies & trackers from slowing me up. The internet scammers are really active - just trying to make an un-honest buck.

Chebby, Spammers use "Wildcards" to send spam and sniffer's to pull internet domains. Simply once they have a domain IE: Vintage-Vans.com they use a wildcard to send spam to: " *(Everyone)*@Vintage-Vans.com". So if you have a Vintage-vans address you will get "lots-O-Spam"!
Not sure how many members have a V.V. email account so you may be the only one. Most domain email servers have 'Spam detection" blocking all emails that have 20, 30, 50 or 100 addresses in the "To:"box. Or block or reject any email addressed " To: undisclosed-recipients". Not sure who's hosting your email accounts but most have a filter option that will help block some or most spam. As technology advances it will only get worse. Also keep in mind the about 90% of site that ask for your email address are selling yours and everyone Else's address to spam marketing centers. Sad but true!!!

Really I have not had 1 maybe it's my Norton AntiVirus..

Well it's definately the OLD forum that's driving me nuts.... This morning I had 118 emails when I turned on the computer... 6 were legit and the other 98% were "spambots" trying to get registered on the old forum.... and they are still coming in

chebby wrote:Well it's definately the OLD forum that's driving me nuts.... This morning I had 118 emails when I turned on the computer... 6 were legit and the other 98% were "spambots" trying to get registered on the old forum.... and they are still coming in

Either disable registration emails for the old forum or add a "captcha image generator" to the registration page so they cant hit submit without typing in the image text.

Spam bots/crawlers/harvesters are always getting more advanced, you'll have to keep your counter measures up to date. Check this out for example.

Chebby,
I get between 90-200 emails everyday. 90% of which is filtered out and sent to the Trash folder. If not for the filters I would be swamped with crap emails everyday!

Dan

slowflapper wrote:

chebby wrote:Well it's definately the OLD forum that's driving me nuts.... This morning I had 118 emails when I turned on the computer... 6 were legit and the other 98% were "spambots" trying to get registered on the old forum.... and they are still coming in

Either disable registration emails for the old forum or add a "captcha image generator" to the registration page so they cant hit submit without typing in the image text.

Spam bots/crawlers/harvesters are always getting more advanced, you'll have to keep your counter measures up to date. Check this out for example.

Very informative! I wish that forum had the possibilities to adjust how new members can register, but what do I expect for free?

I did put blocks on many of the email servers that they seem to use so it's slowed it down somewhat...

chebby wrote:

slowflapper wrote:

chebby wrote:Well it's definately the OLD forum that's driving me nuts.... This morning I had 118 emails when I turned on the computer... 6 were legit and the other 98% were "spambots" trying to get registered on the old forum.... and they are still coming in

Either disable registration emails for the old forum or add a "captcha image generator" to the registration page so they cant hit submit without typing in the image text.

Spam bots/crawlers/harvesters are always getting more advanced, you'll have to keep your counter measures up to date. Check this out for example.

Very informative! I wish that forum had the possibilities to adjust how new members can register, but what do I expect for free?

I did put blocks on many of the email servers that they seem to use so it's slowed it down somewhat...

That wont work for long, 85% of the spam on the WWW comes from malware/virus infected hosts (so they change names/IP's very rapidly). If the old forum is there for reference only can you replace the registration page altogether? or possibly "break" the registration code on purpose?

PM me on it if you like, I do InfoSec for a living.

I've been banning IP addresses like a mad dog (ex: @hotmail.com) and it's slowed them down, but not got rid of the problem... The host of the old forum, from what I've seen in the support forum, is over-run with spambots!

I am VERY thankful it's not HERE! So far I am just the only one that I know of that's having this problem, which most are spambots that are trying to register on the old forum and because I have set it up to admin approval (so if we get a REAL person who wants in, I can send them an email to the new forum) I get the messages that there is a "new member" to be activated....

These spambots never complete the registration process, even if I didn't set it up the way I did, but if there are REAL people out there who want to join,... well you get what I'm trying to do.... We've gotten a lot of members who have registered or tried to, with the old forum first.... and the old forum still has lots of info I think is relavent.... So what can I do, but fight the spambot fight?

Thanks for your concern, and if you think you can still help, let me know.... These FREE forums packaged as they are leave little for us users to change.... for better or worse.... but with the member's gallery on smug mug and monthly basic site fees, it IS what we can afford

Chebby since the first of the year I have had over 600 attempts to sign onto my clubs forums. I have deleted all of them but I still get a lot more everyday. A real pain in the butt.

SPAM, Not just for sandwiches any more!

vanishingbreed wrote:Chebby since the first of the year I have had over 600 attempts to sign onto my clubs forums. I have deleted all of them but I still get a lot more everyday. A real pain in the butt.

Absolutely! I think I've gotten well over 1000 now and still coming in... I slowed them down by banning common email servers there like @gmail.com


SPAM and egg special 7 days a week!

I like my eggs sunny side up! Is this just an Administerator problem? My pc is old and slow,But no Spam! Maybe just luck I guess. And while the computer geek was over fixing my wifes laptop last month, I proceded to ask what I can do to speed things up a bit. He was amazed that it even worked.

Good news! (also good news for VB's club forum) the folks who host the old forum FINALLY got the spambot attack under control They made registering more secure and those who get past it will automatically be deleted after 3 days as spammers never activate their registration...

In the 1000 or so that I deleted from the old forum by hand, only ONE was a real live person looking to join

I will have to be more vigilant over there, making sure who wants to join can before they get dropped...

@ benwah.... your puter may keep going and going even if it is slow... it's these new ones that crap out on you after just a couple of years LOL

I still get 2 or 3 a day and delete them as soon as I see them. Glad they got a handle on it. I was getting tired of deleting.

i'm still getting those too Mike... If they look like "spam" I just delete my email, and they go away in 3 days, if not, I look into them and either approve or delete... so far I just wait for them for them to go away on their own

Chebby, I am still getting 20 or so a day. How about you?

I'm down to about a half dozen a day, BUT since that is a forum mostly for historical purposes, no more posting etc... I also blocked most of the common email extentions such as gmail.com ... That put a halt to many of them. Not something I woud recommend with your forum, unless it's an email extention you know wouldn't be used by your members

yeah the disappear but it sure is annoying.

Totally agree! But at least it's not the 50 to 100 a day anymore

yep, that's true