I just logged on to the CCTV core security forums for the first time in a few weeks - it's a quite site that normally requires little attention.
Only, this time, it had been badly hit by forum spammers.
Luckily, basic anti-spam tools already installed to the forums had prevented almost all from being published, but it still left me having to clear up hundreds of spam postings.
Interestingly, the majority of it was coming from a single IP: 194.8.74.155 - so that's now blocked from the site.
I also updated the forum anti-spam features of vbulletin to add a new custom question and answer, as it appears that numerical based anti-spam systems are now failing. I've also seen it advised that any security question should not mention the answer in the question.
Because much of the spam appears to come from Russia, China and Eastern Europe, I've set up questions based on UK politics, society, and general information that would be easy for almost any Brit to answer, but may leave spammers have to do some research - thus making it not worth their effort.
And, of course, if they do crack the answer - I can just change it again.
Even still, while the steps to make a forum more resistant to spam are fairly simple, if you manage a number of boards it can become a pain. But the issue of forum spam is now a major issue for every single forum out there, and needs to be taken very seriously indeed.
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