Do spambots specifically target phpBB?

undoIT · Post by **undoIT** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 5:41 pm

I can't believe that I am getting signups from spambots. How did they find my site? I have a demo site for phpBB styles that is completely separate from the main site. There are also some other content management systems but none of those have been getting new user registrations.

I have the activation set to Administrator in the configuration area, but I want to completely prevent new user registrations, since the site is for style demos only. Is there any way I can turn off user registration or make it private, while still keeping the site visible for guests? I've checked through all the settings and can't seem to find where I can change this.

Blaine · Post by **Blaine** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:00 pm

Yes. Spambots target phpBB and other board software.

See
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.ph ... 08#2768508

undoIT · Post by **undoIT** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:13 pm

that's a good read, and infuriating! makes me want to become a white hat hacker and take these suckers down. do they really think they gain business by splurging their crap?

Blaine · Post by **Blaine** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:43 pm

undoIT wrote: How did they find my site?

Some people have suggested spammers can find boards by doing a Google search of "Powered by phpBB". Databases with listings of phpboards are distributed.

Edit: For $495 you get a bundle that includes

Software package includes a databases with links to more than 102,000 forums.

Software is able to work with lots of different types of forums and guestbooks: phpBB and PHP-Nuke with any modifications, yaBB, VBulletin, Invision Power Board, IconBoard, UltimateBB, exBB, phorum.org, wiki, different types of bulletin boards and even custom-written code.

Jim_UK · Post by **Jim_UK** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:11 pm

I believe the question was do spambots specifically target phpBB and I believe the answer to that to be no. I think they will follow all links to every BB they can find to try and gain access to post their rubbish.
I recall a while back someone coming on and saying that he had a spambot by such and such a name register and that it was attacking phpBB2 boards.
I Googled tha spambots name and sure enough it had registered on 1000's of phpBB2 boards but it had also registered on VBulletin, SMF and others.

All this concern about spambots when one simple mod will stop them.

Jim

Dog Cow · Post by **Dog Cow** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:58 pm

undoIT wrote: that's a good read, and infuriating! makes me want to become a white hat hacker and take these suckers down. do they really think they gain business by splurging their crap?

They're fueled by ignorance.

Hard to believe, but there are actually people who do click the links, read the messages, etc. and have no problem with it.

shlomp · Post by **shlomp** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:53 pm

Do they specifically target phpbb? Apologies if anyone's posted this already.
http://www.botmaster.net/movies/XFull.htm

ChrisRLG · Post by **ChrisRLG** » Fri Feb 02, 2007 11:00 pm

Notice that this 'program' does not specifically target ONLY phpBB2 - it targets all the known larger forum software - ALL are vulnerable to it.

If fact with the way that simple mods can change phpBB2 - it is LESS susceptible to this type of attack.

Just add a simple unique mod and you fall off their radar.

undoIT · Post by **undoIT** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:50 am

Is there a way to shutdown user registration from the admin control panel that I somehow missed? If not, is there an easy way to prevent new registrations with minimal modification of core files?

drathbun · Post by **drathbun** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:42 pm

Yes, there are a number of ways to do it. My personal favorite (mainly because it does perform only minimal changes to the core files + it does what you are asking and a lot more + I wrote it

) would be the Page Permissions MOD. With it you can shut down registration with a custom message, protect your memberlist or user profiles from guests, and so on.

Page Permissions

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