limit search? because of hackers
 

ok so my site has been hacked a few times, this time the hacker is over loading my server using the search function, i have search disabled at the moment and my members are not liking the fact its disabled.

is there anything i can do to allow the search but limet members and guests time from clicking the new post/threads button please.

thanks if anyone can help.

you can set a time limit between searches and creating new threads and posts

so this also counts for the todays posts button?

To slow down new posts being added..

vBulletin Options > Message Posting and Editing Options > Minimum Time Between Posts

And for searches:

vB Options > Message Searching Options > Minimum Time Between Searches

Those should prevent flooding of your board... to an extent.

ok thanks,

what would be a good Minimum Time Between Searches please?

also what does this have to do with the search todays posts, is search and todays posts linked?

it seems that what ever time limet i put in i can click todays posts any time i want.

Search and Today's Posts don't have anything to do with one another. I don't think there's a way to limit how many times someone goes to the Today's Posts link.

Have you banned the IPs that these floods are coming from?

Which vBulletin version are you using?

yes but they keep using proxy, the other day the hacker put over 32,000 guests on my site,
you can just imagine how slow it was.

anyway i disabled search for guests hope that helps as well.

thanks dude cheers.

3.6.8

If you are on 3.6.8, then the best solution would be to require CAPTCHA for guest searches (assuming your image settings are set to a more advanced CAPTCHA):

AdminCP -> vBulletin Options -> Message Searching Options -> Guest Search Image Verification: Yes

How can I enable this image verification for users in search also?