Spammers...

[marktudor]

Has anyone else had messages like this sent to their customers?:

Full Name: jnqqsvezvm
Email Address: [email protected]
Message:
OHnX2z dkkmlevswmrw <http://dkkmlevswmrw.com/> , ruohdkzmsfxg, [link=http://gnklazecgyea.com/]gnklazecgyea[/link], http://daijcwwnbmrm.com/

URL: MotorhomeLive! Classifieds YAMAHA NEOS 100CC SCOOTER

Every now and again I'll get a dozen or so of these strange mails coming back. Any idea what the perpetrators are trying to achieve? Is it something to worry about? It confuses the hell out of my customers...

[bowers01]

yeah, i think people are finding the urls from here. I havnt posted all my sites anywhere else and im getting these emails from all my sites.
Nick

[marktudor]

Its weird - none of the links or emails they use are real - I don't see how anyone would gain from doing this...

[bowers01]

Would be great if someone made a modue. All it needs is like a bad words filter.
Nick

[Eric Barnes]

Originally Posted by bowers01

Would be great if someone made a modue. All it needs is like a bad words filter.
Nick

Here is a quick spam check module. All this does is check that the message contains less than two links. If it contains more it just errors out.

Keep in mind I just but this together in about 3 minutes. Use at your own risk.

[marktudor]

Crikey! Your a quick worker! Thanks for that Eric - you are always on the ball! I'll give it a whirl and see what happens...

[seymourjames]

Will try this Eric. I have ben getting quite a few of these lately.

[rhound]

developer 4.1.1

Eric, thanks - hopefully this will fix the problem. We had one customer complain today about getting a spam message (prior to my putting in your fix).

Unfortunately, we only know that we have a problem with spam when a customer sends it back to us with a "huh?'...

Are these coming from the contact the owner form? If so, shouldn't that form have code to exclude any "mischief" - for example, links, header injection, etc?

Also, is there a way to have the system send us copies of any messages that go to owners through the contact the owner form for now so we can keep an eye on this?

Thank you very much,

RH

[Eric Barnes]

I recommend you check out this blog post with some measures you can take to guard against this:
Classifieds and Spammers | 68 Classifieds Blog & News

Also to answer your question we do have some internal coding to check a few different things but it can be bypassed. I haven't really found anything foil proof and what some customers want others don't. Just like that module I posted. Some folks may have a legitimate reason to send more than 2 links when contacting.

[rhound]

Developer 4.1.1

Hi Eric,

I did install the module and ran a test putting in three links in the Contact the Owner form. The email went through with the three links. I was using the format <a href="http://www.something.com">hello</a>.

I did put the module in the modules directory and activated it.

Thanks,

RH