Stopping Spam

[vinman57]

At first, spam was coming thru...but we determined it was through email using piping.

Now, getting a whole bunch of spam - "with IP addresses", so if it's capturing that, it's not the piping. Can you offer any advice to halt some of this. It somehows is even bypassing our spam filters.

(DELETED)

[Klemen]

Please don't post spam messages to the board, you don't want to help promote their websites...

That said, have you tried all the steps described here?
http://www.hesk.com/knowledgebase/?article=27

[vinman57]

Klemen
I'm pretty sure I x-out the spam links...if I missed one, I apologize.

I'll try the recaptcha

thanks

[vinman57]

I "xxx'" out all the links. I get this every single day - a different "drug" mentioned.

The IP belong to a well known spammer. I find it hard to believe that this spammer takes the time to fill out contact forms and captchas EVERY SINGLE DAY. Are you confident that they did not find a way to automate this with a script?

Date: 2013-05-07 12:31:20
Name: EquitiQue
Email: xxxxxxxxxx@aol.com
IP: 91.231.40.27

Message:

<a href=xxxxx.com/ 40 mg</a> - <a href=xxxxx.com/ >xxxxxonline</a> , xxxxx.com/ xxxx100 mg

[trainyoucon]

Hi there.

We also having the same problem. I actually created a hidden "catagory" named SPAM where we assign all spam emails to.

Once in a while I export the emails in that category and manually list them in the spam filter.

Maybe a new function to "flag spam" (block email) or not to allow certain words or terms in email piping in the future would be nice.

[Klemen]

They do it automatically of course, yes. The default Captcha that comes with HESK is weak, because it has been written to work on any PHP-enabled server with default configuration (no true type fonts enabled for example) and it's really not that hard to read the number value from it.

However, did you follow ALL steps in the for-mentioned knowledgebase article?
http://www.hesk.com/knowledgebase/?article=27

Step 3 advises you to:

Try disabling Anti-SPAM image in HESK settings and using a good "Anti SPAM question". Don't use a default anti-SPAM question, try writing a unique one for your website yourself.

The anti-SPAM question is a simple solution, but works really well if you write a unique question for your website.

@trainyoucon

I'm afraid that won't do much good, because most of spammers use made up email addresses (that can change for each message) and use thousands of computers infected with viruses to spread the spam (thousands of different IP addresses).

Do try all the steps suggested in the KB article, especially step #3:
http://www.hesk.com/knowledgebase/?article=27

[vinman57]

Yes, I have tried those. I am using the hesk recaptcha plugin.
I have not disabled pop3 as since there is the ip, it's not coming thru the piping.

I even went so far as to ban the ip addresses in htaccess, yet it still comes through.

So my first thought is that they have found a way to automate it thru a hole in the script.

Otherwise, how can this be done automatically with the recapcha form AND the banned IP?
The banned IP should prevent them from even accessing the web site.

Just frustrated.
thanks

[Klemen]

There are no knows security issues with latest HESK version.

Even if there was a whole they could not exploit it if the IP is banned from the server so something else is happening and without even a link to your help desk I can't test or say anything.

[Klemen]

P.s.: Forgot to add that ReCaptcha has been defeated in the past although Google improves it. Why not go back to basics and try a simple, unique anti-spam question (Are dogs animals? yes/no)?