Arctic Donkey
Active Member
Just a note to the mods as it appears that "Eternity" is sending spam PMs
Thanks for the heads up guys. Eternity is no more.
Time will tell. This is not a "real" user but is an application that registers itself then creates automated posts. Usually they try to sell something. I suspect this is a newbie hacker testing their skills.
The provided URL is most likely used to deliver a viral payload to anyone who visits. DO NOT REPLY or FOLLOW THE LINK as you are sure to regret the outcome.
With these open source vBulliten forums we can expect more of the same.
I had almost this exact same PM on a totally different forum that I visit. The message board software looks (to me) to be the same, so it might be a more widespread problem than just the EMRA. Perhaps this should be reported to the software providers?
I replied, nothing happened...
Indeed, this happens all over the 'net. There is nothing that can be done about it other than to move to different technology. vBulletin is free open-source software. Once the hackers figured out how to do this...it was "all over".
Not quite. vBulletin is not free nor open source. The service vBulletin uses for verification at registration (called reCAPTCHA) is free, and spammers cracked it some time back.
It still keeps the majority of the spammers out however, we just have to keep an eye out for the few that do manage to get through.
I just installed an update for the forum, and added an extra step to registration so with any luck that should help prevent this from happening.
Whether it is e-mail or forums, the spammers are always one step ahead, all we can do is delete the obvious spam, ban the bots posting it, and make it as difficult for them to register as possible, we'll never be able to stop everything from coming through.
Have to try and keep a balance of not leaving it wide open for them, but also not causing frustration for legitimate users signing up.