Spam

I let one though earlier and it was a spambot within seconds i had 10+ spam posts :confused:

All i can suggest is look at the email address and the 'User Profile Fields' and the website address spam accounts are quite easy to spot

Spamers bothered. Make manual registration with a question about Dizzy. For example, "What character loves the nature?" Who didn't answer, that not to register.

Looks like there are still quite a few bots logged in to the forum, as there are allegedly about 30 users with a 22nd birthday today!

Well, over a decade on since this thread was created, the spam bots are STILL being a pain in the 4R$£! {eggs3}:insane:  

Thankfully, the bots that attempt to post on here are rare and are flagged automatically.
However, the amount that register on here every day is absolutely ridiculous - about 100 users or less, even the ones that don't activate their account and marked as 'inactive' is over 200 sometimes.
I come on here once every 2-3 days to delete them.

Today though a new record in a space of 24 hours, I managed to delete almost 300 active spam accounts! {yolkfolk}:crazy:  
This is a screenshot of this site's dashboard with a list of some of the spam bots that registered, that's just the tip of the iceberg!

For those that don't know is that this forum we're now using allows users to change their Display Name to save the hassle of contacting Admins to have their name changed, something the spam bots have figured out.
I think that can be disabled but that wouldn't be fair on everyone else and it wouldn't stop the waves of spam appearing.

For some bizarre reason, most of the spam we get is all in Russian, and others about Slot Casinos and other annoyingly senseless drivel which I won't mention here.

Still, at least since last year I now have the power to delete them all, just not the power to block them from registering.

So while the forum may mostly be quiet on the outside, the spam purge continues behind the scenes. {eggs3}:derpy: {eggs3}:stun: {yolkfolk}:yo:  

Adam, just read this thread for the first time. I can't believe our members, who are all gamers, would actually believe that yolkfolk admin would send out mails about viruses, or anything else for that matter, let alone click on links. I've been registered on this site for over ten years and have never received a spam email from the 'admin team'... and my email address is on all my games which a few people use to request help on some of my more obscure puzzles.

However, I can easily believe that Russian spammers targeting UK sites are just part of the Putin admin's retaliation on countries supporting Ukraine. So best of luck in your spambot war (or should I call it a 'special operation' ).

 

Oh this was back when we were using an outdated version of vbulletin for this forum.

That was the probably the worst experience in regards to spam.
Thankfully the forums members who posted here at the time were wise to recognise these spam messages and that Peter was always on scene to try and keep them at bay.

At the moment, the spam bots registering is nowhere near as extreme as it was since my previous post.
Probably a seasonal thing? {yolkfolk}:scratch:  

But the ones that do attempt to post are flagged automatically.