Spam through Contact Us Form

[simonwar]

I have read lots of threads on this but not clear on a fix.

While I divulge the database is there a quick way of removing my Contact Us Page temporarily until I can fix this?

I am getting approx 10,000 SPAM mails a day?

[Darren B]

I have read lots of threads on this but not clear on a fix.

While I divulge the database is there a quick way of removing my Contact Us Page temporarily until I can fix this?

I am getting approx 10,000 SPAM mails a day?

The best way is to change your script id under network settings, this will then chage the form id number.

also make sure you delete the old .pl & pm files from the cgi-bin on your website. This wont totally fix the issue but will probably reduce this alot

Darren

[Darren B]

Also are you using a simple email sales@ or info@ for you normal emails? avoid these as they are the most common emails be spammed

I am ever hopefull that a captcha makes it into Actinic at some time, it has been requested for years - one of the most common requirements these days but for some reason never implemented

[plantsforshade]

Hi Richard Morrow has created a captcha plugin for Actinic.

http://www.activestock.co.uk/product...t-Us-Form.html

Nigel

[pinbrook]

I notice on the following page /acatalog/info.html you have mailto: links to 3 email addresses: helen, simon, andy. I suspect these email addresses have now been harvested and will be spammed big time.

You should remove these links and close those email addresses then a lot of your spam will disappear.

Additionally I would check out the address you use in your contact form with a view to changing it too and ditch the actinic contact form script and use a script that uses captcha.

Sadly the damage has been done so unless you use something like mailwasher on your PC to set up your own specific antispam rules you have no choice but to ditch the addresses that are currently the spam magnets.

Mailserver (host) antispam can help but by definition they always have to err on the side of caution as one mans spam can be anothers valid email.

[simonwar]

Thanks all.
I'm on it and i let you know how I get on.

(Today I had 15000 mails approx 40Mb in size).

Simon.

[Mike Hughes]

What I find a bit odd about this is the sheer scale of spam you're getting.

I have a couple of 'clear' email addresses on my sites that have been there for 7-8 years and nowadays I'm only getting about 100 spam emails a day (down from 200 or so a day a year ago).

Does your contact us script send a copy to the 'sender' as well as to you? I'm just wondering if they're using your script to bulk send spam to lots of people.

Mike

[simonwar]

Started making changes and already got spammed.

I changed my Contact Us Name to something less obvious as recommended, and even though I uploaded the form, the form has been taken offline by the Hosting company and yet within hours I am getting spam to this brand new mailbox.

So I am going to do the following, appreciate it if anyone can advise

1) I will FTP to my host server and delete the .pm and .pl files in the cgi bin directory.
2) Change my script ID, its 1 at the minute, is there any rules for changing these, or other implications?
3) Change my contact mailbox name, again, to something almost cryptic.
4) Upload my site.

I have sent a mail to Active Stock to see if they're captcha integrates with V7 OK, for £20 can't fault it? Preusmably this does not stop them harvesting my mail address but simply stops them using my form?

I have a addeddd a screenshot of my Outlook page - I seem to be getting "Mail Delivery System notifications" - I don't know why?

Any further feedback would be appreciated?

S.

[Sean Williams]

If you're having a brand new email address spammed instantly, could it be there's a trojan or something sitting on the server?
We don't use Outlook, but a glance at your enclosed image suggests you're seeing a lot of returned email - have you an autoresponder loop on the go there?

[simonwar]

I did have an autoresponder on when I was getting 17000 mails, but its turned off for my new mailbox.

[Darren B]

did you change the script id's and delete the old scripts from the cgi-bin?

[simonwar]

Not yet ...... you said change it and I will.

Its only because I wasn't quite sure what to do, although I am not completely sure what actually happens but I do know how to do it...... Advanced > Network Setup > Common Settings

However a quick question.... if I change script ID is there any rules for this and what does it mean for any other scripts and site functions?

And I need to delete old files, I assumed these would overwrite? Or do I need to FTP and delete from Server all scripts, but not the directory ../cgi bin/.. structure itself?

Is this right?

I did do the name change, but still got 30 or so spams in a day, which is vastly better.

[NormanRouxel]

Change the cgi-id number to say 2. Do an Update. Finally you should manually FTP in and delete all server cgi-bin files named AAA000001.pl where the AAA bit will be 2 or 3 characters.

The only downside to doing this is that anyone who has linked to your pages via the old cgi-bin address will not find the pages they want. Anyone linking (in the more usual way) to the .html pages will have no problems. Check this out yourself by googling your own site with some popular search terms and see what the returned links look like.

[Darren B]

the script for the contactus form is open to abuse, just because you changed your email address then it wont stop this script being used by an auto spam script. once they know what the id is they can send loads of spam to you without even visiting your site.

All actinic sites use the same scripts and most are set to id 1 so once this is a known then it is easy to abuse. Although it is more annoying than productive IMHO

[nm-motorsport]

I am having the same problems with a large amount of spam and have been for the last week. My technical knowledge is lacking compared to many on this forum so I have the following questions:

1. If I delete the .pl and .pm files, it is the full content of the cgi-bin folder less one file that is described as an err file. Do I delete this too effectively deleting the whole contents of the folder?

2. To change to email address for the contact form, is it simply a matter of changing it on the contact tab of business settings?

3. When changing the script ID, does it matter what I change it to and how will this change effect anything else?