Thread: worm/virus

As many of you know there has been an increase in spam activity in the Forum lately.
Today a "member" has sent spam through the private messaging system.
We have taken note of this situation and will handle it according.
We apologize for any inconvenience.

Yep - got it (the PM) didn't know who it was, and saw that the account had been deleted so I just deleted the PM -

Good job guys!

Unfortunately, signing up for a Forum, going through the vailidation process, and then senting PM's to members is the new way to spam a Forum.

Chris, is looking into solutions to prevent such attacks.
In the mean time, I have been "upgraded" to help on "SPAM control"

If you/(any member) receive SPAM, please notify Chris (nonrev1) or me with as many details as you have, so we can review the complaint and take appropriate action.

Again, we would like to thank the many members of the Forum for alerting us to this recent SPAM attack.

there's another
kirkurial
I blocked him

Once again thank you for your posts and PM's about this evening's Spam attack.
We are as concerned as you are about these attacks and Chris is working to come up with an effective solution to the problem.
Thank you again for your help

Kirkurial has been banned!

I just got one but I saw that it was a deleted member so I trashed it.
Sorry to see all the trouble this helpful forum is having.
Regards to everybody.
Zedman.

Just an update
Spammers are a persistent bunch. Because the PM system is down spammers have shifted to a new strategy - registering and then asking some general question, which they then answer .
In recent months we have seen members with odd/suspicious profiles and one who registered using an inappropriate name.
Now spammers using inappropriate languge or who list their airline as "ABCDEFG" are easy to spot, but lately the Forum has been getting a number of people whose profile fall into a grey area - some parts look OK, other parts of the pofile are left blank or are "just a little odd"

Not wanting to punish the rushed, or person just traveling, I have chosen a wait & see approach with new members.
As you can see from Restaurants near Sacramento, this type of Forum spammer usually shows themselves pretty quickly.
BTW, those two, asked and answered that same question on at least 6 different boards, and as it was in our case, it was ther first post.
At any rate, if you should see any odd profiles, don't hesitiate to contact Chris or myself.

Thanks
Mig on spam patrol.

We&#39;ve had the same problems on another board I moderate at. While we use phpBB instead of Invision (IPS), a while back we had decent luck by adding a question "What&#39;s 2+2?" to the registration forum. Maybe something like that can be added? Better yet, something airline-related since I have seen some human-driven advertisers trying to beat the system. Maybe something like "Which airline has Northwest Airlines recently merged with?" or "What is the airport code for Sioux City, IA?" (obviously, that can be looked up easily). I&#39;m sure there&#39;s a possible modification that can be made. If one of the admins (probably nonrev1) is interested, shoot me an email. <myusernameontheboardhere>@gmail.com