Is this forum hacked?

[HSKR R/T]

As @Eighty said, those first post threads by new members have to be approved by a mod before they post. Something in Xenforo must be tripping the new thread notifications prior to approval. They're deleted for reasons already covered (spam).





This.

I'm usually on checking for spam until midnight MDT or later, often until 0200 and sometimes later.

Very few are getting through since the new settings were deployed. Same thing I'm seeing over at HDRams.

There's some TLD restrictions also in place, and (I believe) a secondary spam honeypot.

The new changes are definitely working. Just booted a couple more that popped into approval cue.

 

[mikeru82]

I just wanted to say you guys are doing a fantastic job! Thanks for all you do.

 

[Brutal_HO]

FWIW, it's not preventing ALL new users from posting, just those that are popping one or more traps.

 

[devildodge]

I got 3 spam here today and 3 at HDRAMS.

I noticed 3 of them said 0 messages...is this because of the new system...and it actually did not post, but rather waiting approval?

Screenshot shows 1 measage as they used to.

You can see they joined at 0421 and posted about 1110.

 

[HSKR R/T]

I got 3 spam here today and 3 at HDRAMS.

I noticed 3 of them said 0 messages...is this because of the new system...and it actually did not post, but rather waiting approval?

Screenshot shows 1 measage as they used to.

You can see they joined at 0421 and posted about 1110.
View attachment 126228

Waiting approval means the post isnt visible until one of us approved it.

 

[Aseras]

I see this on other forums too. "sleeper" accounts being used and new accounts posting and bumping random old threads ( also thanks to the craptastic recommendations of the xenforo software ). Some vaguely participate for a while and then waves of spam.

I can't possibly see them making any money doing it, I honestly wonder if its some kinda smear campaign done to target the people running the "ads" by competition.

 

[djevox]

I see this on other forums too. "sleeper" accounts being used and new accounts posting and bumping random old threads ( also thanks to the craptastic recommendations of the xenforo software ). Some vaguely participate for a while and then waves of spam.

I can't possibly see them making any money doing it, I honestly wonder if its some kinda smear campaign done to target the people running the "ads" by competition.

There are several reasons it’s done, and it’s all for monetary reasons. If enough people click the link even if they don’t buy anything, then that is considered organic traffic and boosts their domain authority. If they have enough organic traffic, they can either advertise products on their site or sell their domain for more money. If the domain they are linking to is actually an affiliate of another product and they aren’t making many sales, they can still show that they have a lot of organic traffic and the potential to make sales. On the same side of the coin, they can sell that affiliate site and show the potential for sales with the organic traffic (wether the traffic is real or not). The only thing it won’t do is boost their search engine optimization by creating a dofollow link.

On the darker side of things, the sky is the limit with what nefarious actions they could take if you follow the link. Installing malware, ransom ware, root kits, etc.

 

[Eighty]

There are several reasons it’s done, and it’s all for monetary reasons. If enough people click the link even if they don’t buy anything, then that is considered organic traffic and boosts their domain authority. If they have enough organic traffic, they can either advertise products on their site or sell their domain for more money. If the domain they are linking to is actually an affiliate of another product and they aren’t making many sales, they can still show that they have a lot of organic traffic and the potential to make sales. On the same side of the coin, they can sell that affiliate site and show the potential for sales with the organic traffic (wether the traffic is real or not). The only thing it won’t do is boost their search engine optimization by creating a dofollow link.

On the darker side of things, the sky is the limit with what nefarious actions they could take if you follow the link. Installing malware, ransom ware, root kits, etc.

Personally, I think they just have a passion for selling CBD gummies.

 

[djevox]

Personally, I think they just have a passion for selling CBD gummies.

Lol, it certainly seems that way. On every website I have public, my comments get bombarded with CBD companies. It’s so bad that I’ve turned off comments on all my sites. The big problem that I’m seeing is that all of the people leaving spam comments are real users and rotate IP‘s, so they’re really hard to lock down with automated rules.

 

[Mountain Whiskey]

I guess spam here is like all the phone calls you get. If ihave time I try and drag them out. You know the one where they call and tell you there is something wrong with Windows and they need to fix it?

I was at work once and just played along since I was at my keyboard anyway. Typing and pretending I was following instructions. He asked me to read him the key on the screen and I just asked how many people actually fall for this? He was blatant and open. He told me that they have dozens of people each day that give them access to thier computers like this and about 5% result in them gaining access to passwords and accounts either with stores that have saved info or banking info. He said the stores are the easier hit as they can order goods and once they ship it is done. I found the conversation enlightening. Had a good laugh and wished him a good day.

 

[CObiomedtech]

There is a ton of spam every day, and we're beating them down as fast as we can. It's just the nature of the forum business - I really don't know why these spammers want to sell CBD gummies so bad.
The spammers are just new members posting links, trying to get someone to click on them. They aren't hacking into the system.

If only they were smart enough to sell fake foam cup holders, then they could snag some $$$

 

[Brutal_HO]

I guess spam here is like all the phone calls you get. If ihave time I try and drag them out. You know the one where they call and tell you there is something wrong with Windows and they need to fix it?

I was at work once and just played along since I was at my keyboard anyway. Typing and pretending I was following instructions. He asked me to read him the key on the screen and I just asked how many people actually fall for this? He was blatant and open. He told me that they have dozens of people each day that give them access to thier computers like this and about 5% result in them gaining access to passwords and accounts either with stores that have saved info or banking info. He said the stores are the easier hit as they can order goods and once they ship it is done. I found the conversation enlightening. Had a good laugh and wished him a good day.

My idiot brother called me a few weeks ago to ask if it should take "Microsoft" 3 hours to fix a virus. He actually called the number that popped up. <bang head>.

"FFS, turn it off."

Thankfully he didn't have anything on it or cached passwords to anything, nor does he have anything worth taking. It was mom's old laptop and I had fortunately sanitized it over the holidays during a hometown visit under duress.

I think he ate too many crayons the short time he was a Marine - medically discharged for breaking his back on some training exercise.

 

[Mountain Whiskey]

My idiot brother called me a few weeks ago to ask if it should take "Microsoft" 3 hours to fix a virus. He actually called the number that popped up. <bang head>.

"FFS, turn it off."

Thankfully he didn't have anything on it or cached passwords to anything, nor does he have anything worth taking. It was mom's old laptop and I had fortunately sanitized it over the holidays during a hometown visit under duress.

I think he ate too many crayons the short time he was a Marine - medically discharged for breaking his back on some training exercise.

"FFS Turun it off!"

You're killing me here! Oh Jesus! I can just picture you screaming at him over the phone while the guy is looking puzzled wondering what he did wrong. Oh that's funny!
Glad nothing was on it.

 

[Brutal_HO]

We are Irish and we are brothers, it was not a pretty sight. <said in your favorite fake Irish accent>

Followed by,

"I 100% guarantee that's a scammer."

"But he gave me his badge number."

"You installed Teamviewer for him didn't you."

"How did you know?"

It just got dumber after that.

Told him to call the guy back and use as many expletives to describe his mother as he could before he hung up.

This happened once to my 83 YO mother years ago. Know what she did? Called me first.

 

[DirtNazzty]

I guess spam here is like all the phone calls you get. If ihave time I try and drag them out. You know the one where they call and tell you there is something wrong with Windows and they need to fix it?

I was at work once and just played along since I was at my keyboard anyway. Typing and pretending I was following instructions. He asked me to read him the key on the screen and I just asked how many people actually fall for this? He was blatant and open. He told me that they have dozens of people each day that give them access to thier computers like this and about 5% result in them gaining access to passwords and accounts either with stores that have saved info or banking info. He said the stores are the easier hit as they can order goods and once they ship it is done. I found the conversation enlightening. Had a good laugh and wished him a good day.

If you're not already aware, there are a couple guys on YouTube with big channels that do this daily lol... They make a living off calling these scam centers and dragging them out foreeeever making the scammer think they're following along with their scam, when really these guys are hacking into the scammers systems and deleting all their files etc.... Even hacking into their cameras inside these scam centers ableing us, the viewer to see the actual people in the process of trying to scam people... Its hilarious to watch, very entertaining channels to check out if you haven't already lol.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Mountain Whiskey]

If you're not already aware, there are a couple guys on YouTube with big channels that do this daily lol... They make a living off calling these scam centers and dragging them out foreeeever making the scammer think they're following along with their scam, when really these guys are hacking into the scammers systems and deleting all their files etc.... Even hacking into their cameras inside these scam centers ableing us, the viewer to see the actual people in the process of trying to scam people... Its hilarious to watch, very entertaining channels to check out if you haven't already lol.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

I'll have to search that. I haven't seen it. Personally I couldn't hack an abacus.

 

[BowDown]

Right now, all new members are set up so that their first post has to be approved by a moderator before they can do anything else. Honestly, I'm not sure how some of these are making it through.

Because they are more than likely bots and not actually people signing up just to spam. Bots can be written to auto create accounts and even fake 1st posts