SPAM in PMs??

[alphaman]

Hi,

Just got a pr0n-related SPAM in a PM to me. Any admins that want it so they can boot the spammer?

Aaron

[bhyman1]

I got one too. username jettman

[gjvrieze]

I just got it from, gotuitdan, I PMed Opus4 concerning it too.....

[DaveWC]

I got one from MrLoopy.

[AntMan]

Me too. The username was "mrloopy". Sent Thu, 14 Aug 2008 05:39:20 -0700

[Motofreak75]

looks like the member DB got hacked somehow


change your passwords to something that you don't use elsewhere


The member "Playnice" just sent me a msg.

[Ryokurin]

I've gotten them in other places over time. Its just that bots are smart enough to get past some captcha's now and they PM everyone who's online at the moment. At least they aren't making threads yet.

[alphaman]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

I've gotten them in other places over time. Its just that bots are smart enough to get past some captcha's now and they PM everyone who's online at the moment. At least they aren't making threads yet.

Not the symptoms in this case -- I've not logged into the forum in several weeks.

I just noticed that the PM subsystem has been disabled. Obviously it's being worked on by the admins. Thanks, folks!

[Opus4]

This appears to be a result of users using their username as their password.

And again:

That should be the first online rule to follow:


Your password should not be the same as your username.
"password" is no good either.


Those users have had their passwords reset.

I'll see about deleting the spam sent by those accounts, but you may need to delete the messages in your own accounts.

- Andy

[jasmithvr6]

Originally Posted by Opus4

This appears to be a result of users using their username as their password.

And again:

That should be the first online rule to follow:


Your password should not be the same as your username.
"password" is no good either.


Those users have had their passwords reset.

I'll see about deleting the spam sent by those accounts, but you may need to delete the messages in your own accounts.

- Andy

As an FYI, I also received a SPAM private message today and my username and passwords are not the same.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by jasmithvr6

As an FYI, I also received a SPAM private message today and my username and passwords are not the same.

No, this is spam sent FROM those accounts, not to them.

I'll work my way through their accounts & delete all their PMs eventually, but not all at once.

- Andy

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Opus4

This appears to be a result of users using their username as their password.

And again:

That should be the first online rule to follow:


Your password should not be the same as your username.
"password" is no good either.


Those users have had their passwords reset.

I'll see about deleting the spam sent by those accounts, but you may need to delete the messages in your own accounts.

- Andy

vBulletin should've had a feature to prevent usernames being used as passwords, for security purposes. Maybe there's an add-on for such feature?

[matt91]

You should really flunk out of internet school if you Username + PW is the same

[Opus4]

Update: All the accounts have been cleaned up & passwords have been reset, including for those whose password was "password".

All PMs for those users where user == pwd have been removed, so if your account was affected & you lost an important PM... choose a better password next time. I indiscriminately deleted them all.

I guess it could have been worse: many such accounts were dormant and/or didn't post enough to even be allowed to send PMs. I guess it helps that I recently changed the forum so that PMs are disabled for low post count users.

- Andy

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I guess it could have been worse: many such accounts were dormant and/or didn't post enough to even be allowed to send PMs. I guess it helps that I recently changed the forum so that PMs are disabled for low post count users.

Prescient is what I'd call it.

[QueOnda]

I'm glad that I didn't have to change my password

My current password = OPUS4 is still working.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by QueOnda

I'm glad that I didn't have to change my password

My current password = OPUS4 is still working.

Yeah, that one will still work because no one would guess it, so you are safe.

Or, if you really want to use "password" as your password, then at least misspell it a little so looks like "penguin38" or something. Or, misspell your username so it isn't quite the same as the password & you'll be all set.

- Andy

[Opus4]

42 of their bots are still trying to log in from various 212.143.129.xxx IP addresses.

If a legit user uses an address within that range, you'll have to find another way to connect because that's all blocked.

I guess we'll see if they find a new generic password to exploit in the near future...

- Andy

[alphaman]

Thanks for taking care of this so promptly, Opus4! You da... uh... Penguin!

[hogburgs]

Just want to echo my thanks too,great work!