Lots of SPAM lately....last couple of weeks
 

I'm running a modified version of 3.73 and I'm getting a LOT of SPAM lately.

I have re-Captcha installed and up to date but they are bypassing it or they have it figured out?

Anyone else besides me getting bombarded like this all of a sudden?

What else can I do to stop it?

NoSpam - https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=183329

Works like a charm.!!

Thanks for the reply.......

re-Captcha is supposed to be the "industry standard" and how can a robot cheat that?

Did someone crack that code or find a work around or something?

I hate to remove re-Captcha unless that is the only solution.

I was wondering if I'm the only one being attacked and it's a "personal vendetta" or if others were experiencing the same thing just recently.

I read the other day that re-Capcha code was cracked, it was here in the forum but I can't find the thread.

Im getting hit large as well. They're defeating my question/answer and there is no way a bot is beating the questions. Its been bulleet proof up until 3 weeks ago. Something tells me they're finding a way straight into the database bypassing the question/answer.

Me too, I'm getting hit with a lot of spam. I think it's just people in Asia that these companies have hired for a nickel a day to post this stuff...

-Wayne

I'm trying to block IP blocks at the server level until I can figure out what the fix is.

If it's an actual person doing this....there is no blocking them.

Moderating new members isn't the cure because you won't know the new member is a spammer until after you grant access......I don't see that as the fix.

Something is going on, somehow they are bypassing the anti-spam.

There's a plug-in I installed a long time ago called "prevent spam", I forget who created it. I just changed the settings to include [url and it immediately flags all posts from users with less than three posts. It places them in the moderation queue. I suspect this will finally stop the spammers cold, as all they care about is linking to their site. If they cannot do that, then they will hopefully give up. In the meantime, any posts with URLs in them from new members will be flagged for moderation.

-Wayne

there is something definitely going on. My question answer is something only a select group of people know. No way a german, russian or asian guy knows across the ocean. They're signing up and all have the same TIMEZONE.

Is there some super-secret hacker site that has a list of forums and where to post? (list for the spammers to use)

I've noticed that almost 100% of the spam is coming into the first forum within a forum group. In other words, if I have 5 forums, each with 5 subs under that, the spam is coming in almost always to the first listed subforum. This seems very bot-like.

Last night I switched back and forth between questions and captcha, and watched the spam roll in even right after I made the change. So, someone might have gone to my site and pre-answered all of the questions and plugged them into their "bot". The posts also come from different IPs as well.

If someone is taking the time to do all of this, I fail to see the benefit. I don't think the spam on my forums gets any traction for these people. Our site is very popular with Google, perhaps they are not looking for links, but looking for Google to index our pages and then elevate their results?

Who knows...

-Wayne

Heck, I thought it was just me...I had to shut down my new registrations...I don't have time to monitor new members...

Same here and it's driving me crazy. reCAPTCHA used to work, but it's definitely been cracked. Just switched to Q&A per vB suggestion and that hasn't help at all.

+1 ... something is happening, Re-Captcha doesn't work and based on posts above I'm nervous that a Q+A would work either :S

This is still working great for me, but i did get one spammer in the last few weeks.
Maybe the question needs to be changed every week or so. (or sooner if they figure it out sooner)

Also no they are not bots, they are people.! (or some sort of inbetween. lol)
If your site is American just make the question/answer Superbowl related. ;)

I have to use recaptcha, NoSpam and StopForumSpam to keep them out. These guys are getting desperate and just register manually now. Or they found a way around the NoSpam and recaptcha because I was getting at least 1/2 dozen a day until adding the StopForumSpam. For now it seems to be under control.

Also be sure to use at least recaptcha for your Contact Us form. I was also getting a bunch of junk that way also....

Edit..................

One more thing. Go to StopForumSpam / Register and get the API Key. That way anything new will log to their database helping to slow it down.