SPAM

[Pints]

Another bout of spam in GG this morning from a new member. Will you be blocking the offending IP address of these sorts of offenders? Mods do a great job but it's getting silly now.

[Pints]

There have been several sub-continent spam attacks over the past couple of days. Surely blocking the IP is a start?

[Pints]

Utterly ruining PH. Surely an IP block will slow them down.
Or a 14 day cooling off period after registering.

[Pints]

Ollie_M said:

I have upgraded the security status of the site for the time being whilst this attack persists.

Ollie

A good start but, as Ali Kat says, why not leave it in place permanently?

[Pints]

Ollie_M said:

Its not as easy as that i'm afraid and i'm not a techie myself, but basically this status prevents any new member until we refresh the 'Trustee Status' manually. It is the most effective way of preventing the spamming email from appearing.
The attacks are quite short and concentrated so we usually go back down to 'defcom 4' after a short time.

The team regularly check and adjust the site security settings to ward of other attacks. As a company that holds a vast amount data we have stringent security criteria that we have to meet and maintain.

I have to ensure PCI DSS compliance for our tens of millions of customers, so I appreciate the efforts.

[Pints]

The short term cooling off period doesn't seem to be working. They're back in force this morning.


How are this lot getting through if you imposed this only a day or so ago? Clickhere777 is the user.

[Pints]

Seemingly too few early morning mods about to catch it earlier.

[Pints]

This is getting fking ridiculous.

[Pints]

Today's spammer joined on 21st November and left it until today to dump his st here. Early hours of the morning so fewer mods about to deal with it too.

Edited by Pints on Wednesday 9th December 08:23

[Pints]

Those bds are at it again. I really can't be bothered to search for the genuine stuff.
We'll chat in a few hours when the mods wake up.

Are you sure if the IP does bounce on this spammer, or was that just a guess previously? Still seems a fairly obvious fix.

[Pints]

Ollie_M said:

Morning

I have updated the site's trustee status this should prevent these posts.

Ollie

[Pints]

Drastro04 was at it this morning. Lovely wares for sale from India. Apparently.

[Pints]

Voldemort said:

'Sorted' means just removing them as they are found/reported, I presume?

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Which is a bit ridiculous. I'm sounding like a broken record but that Cheap Kitchens outfit has to be a prime example of where the banning of a fixed IP should work.

And any bouncing IP should be added to the "highly suspect" list for the first dozen or so posts - preferably in a new "we're new so please moderate us accordingly" corner.

[Pints]

Overall security of PH needs considering. HTTPS, Captcha, IP monitoring of new users.

[Pints]

trickywoo said:

If the spammer was naming and shaming instead they'd have been gone long ago.

This narensharma101 chap is doing well. 271 posts a minute ago.

[Pints]

hornetrider said:

Seriously. It's 9.30am and it's still going on. Where the fk is everybody?

@Pistonheads is busy posting on Twitter. Because an old Renault is more important than the site's integrity.

[Pints]

Don1 said:

And what are the powers that be are going to do about this?

PH used to be my default website to visit first thing in the morning. I no longer bother with morning browsing because of how likely it is that I'll be confronted with some or other spam.