Spammers

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Hey everyone - Over the last month or so, we have a very rude and inconsiderate spammer who continuously creates user names to post spam links on the board. In spite of our requests to cease and desist, this spammer persists. We are working on a permanent solution to the problem, but I just want to caution and/or remind all members not to open any thread or click on any links posted by any suspicious user.

Thanks!

[Freypower]

Is it OK for me to delete the threads when they appear in CT&W or would you prefer to do it?

[Ive always been a dreamer]

For right now, I think I would prefer to delete them. I am keeping a record of the user names, IP address, etc. so it may be better for me to do it so it'll be easier to keep track of everything.

[KingWalsh]

Spammers are amongst us again.
please be advised not to click suspicious links!!
ie posts from tammanna And ririkabhandari

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Thanks for the heads up. I also had some report this via email. Sorry, I wasn't available to take care of this yesterday, but I'm on it now. I'll delete the posts and ban them and the IP addresses. Hopefully, that will stop them, but please post in this thread if you notice anything else.

[WalshFan88]

Thanks Dreamer! I did report one of them. I think that it's just a game of cat and mouse and it seems to come in waves.

VBulletin doesn't have bot detection yet or a CAPTCHA type system. I think Xenforo does (IIRC), but even that can be circumvented. VBulletin and Xenforo being popular forum software companies.

An IP ban is all you can do. Sometimes if you have the ability you can blacklist the entire subnet or an IP range if you know they all belong to the same spam botnet and that can have more of a lasting impact.

Most of these postings are NOT human and are automated. And a lot of those links aren't just advertising, some of them belong to foreign domains and can host malware, adware, or even the latest scary infection type - ransomware. Which can essentially encrypt all of the files on your PC and you have to pay them an unaffordable amount of money to get the decryption key. Some don't even offer a decryption payment method and just do it to do it. The encryption is the strongest out there and the files are just not recoverable in any fashion. Backup, run a great antivirus, and watch every link and every attachment you open!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Austin - We do have the ability to ban subnets or any range for IP addresses. However, in this most recent case, the two spammers had identical IPs, so I just banned that address. However, I'll keep an eye on it and if I notice new spammers with the same subnet, then I'll ban it as well.

But, as you said, you never know what type infections may be embedded in these posts, so the best rule of thumb is what I suggested in my opening post back in 2016 - and that is to never open any thread or click on any links posted by any suspicious user.

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Hey all - You may have noticed that we have been bombarded by a group of spammers over the last couple of months that have managed to get around some of the traditional ways we have of blocking them. Most of the time, I have been able to keep up and delete them the same day of registration. Yesterday, they upped their game and there were over 300 registrations. Soda and I spent several hours last night deleting them and trying to determine a firewall to block the registrations. We think we have it figured out, but we wanted to let you all know that one of the features we implemented is to moderate all new registrations. This means that any new user registration must be approved by the administrator before the user becomes a member. This is not a feature that we really like because it can discourage new legitimate users from being able to post as soon as they join the board. Hopefully, this will be temporary and we can restore the current process once we have things under control. We will monitor new registrations daily and try to approve legitimate users in a timely manner.

This interim process should not impact any of you current members, but we thought you should be aware in the event that you know someone who wants to join the board.

[FreyFollower]

Where do all these Goobers come from, and what is their problem? Geez! Thanks Dreamer and Soda for all your hard work! Sorry you had to deal with all those headaches!

[New Kid In Town]

Dreamer and Soda - Thanks for all the hard work to do !
Those spammers seem to be everywhere now !