I was working through my archive when I just happened to look at the All Members list instead of the authors for some reason.
I found 5 weird user names, like "aaayaya" and "aaawowa" that are clearly spambots for World of Warcraft and other links that are in the profile.
I have over 500 members, so I haven't looked past the first 4 pages to see if I see any other potential spam member names, and I admit that I see a few that are just random letters and numbers that look somewhat suspicious. Is there anyway I can keep this from happening again? Should I e-mail the suspicious member names and if I don't get a response delete them?
Thanks!
URL: http://www.sinful-desire.org/archive
Version: 3.5.2
Modules: Story End, Beta Reader, Challenges, Story Tracker
PHP: 5.2.5
MySQL: 5.0.67
Do you use captcha verification? If not, this would be a good idea to enable that in your admin/site settings. It will force registerting members to enter a validation code to verify they are indeed human.
Jacynthe
Archives: http://fanfics.e-authors.net
Version: 3.5.3
Modified? Somewhat...
PHP: 5.3.3
MySQL: 5.0.91-community
Hi,
Yes, I have captcha verification turned on for reviews and when registering at the site, which is why I'm so confused that I have members who are just spambots in the first place.
URL: http://www.sinful-desire.org/archive
Version: 3.5.2
Modules: Story End, Beta Reader, Challenges, Story Tracker
PHP: 5.2.5
MySQL: 5.0.67
Lock the accounts you have found, and make sure that you have passwords sent to e-mail when registering, and not enabling people to select their own password when they sign in.
Update your terms of use. Here's mine, which is linked on the homepage:
http://www.potionsandsnitches.net/fanfiction/viewpage.php?page=tos
To find all the accounts that advertise W*rcr*ft, export your authors table, and do a search (with the search and replace function) for all the bios that have the name they are advertising. They go to each account number, copy it and visit that profile number on your site (or in your database) and delete it.
Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
url: https://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction
php: 7.4.33 msql: 5.6.51-community GPL
efic version: 3.5.5 latest patches: yes
bridges: none mods: challenges, tracker, story end, beta, word
OK, so I changed the password to have it e-mailed to new members, which isn't what I had it at before.
I'll export my authors table when I get home and go through it tonight. Thanks for the suggestion!
Should I contact those people with those weird user names (Like, I have "CC125" and "4690" and a few others that have shown no activity on the site as far as reviews or adding favorites) and delete them if I don't get a response?
URL: http://www.sinful-desire.org/archive
Version: 3.5.2
Modules: Story End, Beta Reader, Challenges, Story Tracker
PHP: 5.2.5
MySQL: 5.0.67
Delete them. Delete anything advertising on your site.
Whoever said nothing is impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
url: https://www.potionsandsnitches.org/fanfiction
php: 7.4.33 msql: 5.6.51-community GPL
efic version: 3.5.5 latest patches: yes
bridges: none mods: challenges, tracker, story end, beta, word
I would suggest that to save yourself sometime that you delete them through phpmyAdmin or whatever you use to manage your MySQL database.
Don't delete them through phpmyadmin. Delete them through the admin panel so anything they've posted on your site are also delete as they probably put spam in there as well. When the spambots were trying to post on one of my php-fusion sites they were posting comments on all the news items. I would expect the same could have happened here.
