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Author Topic: High amounts of Spam  (Read 20420 times)

graphics

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High amounts of Spam
August 20, 2013, 01:12:46 pm
Hello,

I recently moved my Drupal install (6.19) and CiviCRM install (3.2.0) to a new server. Since then I have been getting triple the amount of spam from the "Mailing Address Update" Form (basically people spambots updating profiles in CiviCRM).

Is there anything I can do to combat this? I've tried a number of spam plugins: Bad Behavior, CAPTCHA, Mollom, Spambot, Antispam & Spamicide. Why might the spam I'm getting triple after a server move?

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Coleman Watts

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 21, 2013, 01:07:38 pm
Unless I'm missing something, none of those modules would help you because the form in question is a CiviCRM profile, which drupal anti-spam modules don't protect.
However, they do work on Webforms. I find the combination of webform_civicrm and mollom works for me.
Try asking your question on the new CiviCRM help site.

graphics

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 21, 2013, 01:34:14 pm
Quote from: Coleman Watts on August 21, 2013, 01:07:38 pm
Unless I'm missing something, none of those modules would help you because the form in question is a CiviCRM profile, which drupal anti-spam modules don't protect.
However, they do work on Webforms. I find the combination of webform_civicrm and mollom works for me.

Thanks for the reply! I'm new to Drupal & CiviCRM, but have a background in Wordpress. What exactly do I need to do with webform_civicrm and mollom to reduce spam? I just installed webform_civicrm, do I need to do anything more?

Thanks again, I greatly appreciate your response.

graphics

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 21, 2013, 01:53:57 pm
Specifically, I think that this form is being spammed: www.mysite.com/?q=user/1/edit/Mailing Address

Do I need to add a webform to this page or something?

Coleman Watts

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 21, 2013, 05:27:06 pm
2 things.

In general: Any public profile you have exposed on your website could be replaced with a webform. Installing webform_civicrm alone doesn't do that. You need to build the webform using a similar procss to how you built the profile: create a new webform, click the CiviCRM tab and enable the fields you wish, and generally configure the webform to look the way you want. The module is extremely flexible and useful - I think once you try it you'll suddenly find a whole lot of uses for it. Then take down the old profile. Also, Mollom needs to be explicitly told about your new webform so it can start protecting it from spam.

In specific: the page you are referring to is a user page, which by definition is not accessible to anonymous users. So unless spambots are creating user accounts on your site, I'm not sure how that page could be getting spammed.
Try asking your question on the new CiviCRM help site.

graphics

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 22, 2013, 06:10:46 am
Quote from: Coleman Watts on August 21, 2013, 05:27:06 pm
2 things.

In general: Any public profile you have exposed on your website could be replaced with a webform. Installing webform_civicrm alone doesn't do that. You need to build the webform using a similar procss to how you built the profile: create a new webform, click the CiviCRM tab and enable the fields you wish, and generally configure the webform to look the way you want. The module is extremely flexible and useful - I think once you try it you'll suddenly find a whole lot of uses for it. Then take down the old profile. Also, Mollom needs to be explicitly told about your new webform so it can start protecting it from spam.

In specific: the page you are referring to is a user page, which by definition is not accessible to anonymous users. So unless spambots are creating user accounts on your site, I'm not sure how that page could be getting spammed.

Thanks again for your reply. From what I can tell, it looks like spambots are creating user accounts on the site. How can I stop this?

Coleman Watts

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  • I’m (like) Lobo ;)
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  • CMS version: Various
Re: High amounts of Spam
August 22, 2013, 12:44:28 pm
You'll find quite a lot of discussion about that on drupal.org: https://www.google.com/search?q=prevent+spam+users+site:drupal.org

PS. While webform_civicrm is a good module and I think you'll find it useful, it's not directly applicable to this, since what you want is to prevent spam users and not (as I originally thought) needing to protect a CiviCRM form that is open to the public.
Try asking your question on the new CiviCRM help site.

graphics

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Re: High amounts of Spam
August 23, 2013, 06:09:40 am
Alright, so I seem to have fixed this issue.

Here's what I did:

1) Removed all of my spam plugins.
2) Re-installed Mollom.
3) When into the Mollom setting and Added the "User: User registration form" option.

It seems that I just didn't have Mollom setup to include the user registration form. I am getting no more spam users signing up and not more spam mail. In my Mollom Report is is showing a graph with 120 blocked spam. I also found that installing Bad Behavior seemed to decrease the amount of spam I was getting, but did not eliminate it.

Thanks for all of your help.
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  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Support »
  • Using CiviCRM (Moderator: Dave Greenberg) »
  • High amounts of Spam

This forum was archived on 2017-11-26.