Information about the recent spamming incident
Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 2:36 am
Yesterday and today, some spam happened on UT99.org.
Here is some information, what exactly happened:
- Around 14 accounts were created (by hand as it looks), which posted over 4000 posts by automation.
- These accounts deleted their own posts afterwards.
- Just before and after these accounts deleted their own posts, the account luluthefirst deleted some of his own posts, too (by now, nearly all of the account's posts are empty) and PMed me to inform me, that I can now move his (empty) posts over to the fake-author "UT99.org" (which I use as author for posts of users who wants to be deleted. So their posts will not be deleted, too).
What I did now:
- I have deleted all spam accounts.
- The registration is open again.There is no security issue, since these few spam accounts where most likely created by hand.
- I have changed the Flood interval (Number of seconds a user must wait between posting new messages) from 10 to 30 seconds.
- I have written a mail to the e-mail adress of the account luluthefirst to inform about the incident and asking for any information, he probably might have for me. The account is banned for now.
For now, it seems like everything is back to normal.
Yet it is unclear, if the spamming here was caused by luluthefirst itself or by another person who just also hijacked his account (which doesn't look like it happened by random).
To the admins of other forums: If you have a user named luluthefirst, please consider to have a close look at this account's actions.
If incidents like that happen again, please don't hesitate to immediately contact me via mail: mail@ut99.org. That's the fastest way to inform me about anything. Thank you!
Here is some information, what exactly happened:
- Around 14 accounts were created (by hand as it looks), which posted over 4000 posts by automation.
- These accounts deleted their own posts afterwards.
- Just before and after these accounts deleted their own posts, the account luluthefirst deleted some of his own posts, too (by now, nearly all of the account's posts are empty) and PMed me to inform me, that I can now move his (empty) posts over to the fake-author "UT99.org" (which I use as author for posts of users who wants to be deleted. So their posts will not be deleted, too).
What I did now:
- I have deleted all spam accounts.
- The registration is open again.There is no security issue, since these few spam accounts where most likely created by hand.
- I have changed the Flood interval (Number of seconds a user must wait between posting new messages) from 10 to 30 seconds.
- I have written a mail to the e-mail adress of the account luluthefirst to inform about the incident and asking for any information, he probably might have for me. The account is banned for now.
For now, it seems like everything is back to normal.
Yet it is unclear, if the spamming here was caused by luluthefirst itself or by another person who just also hijacked his account (which doesn't look like it happened by random).
To the admins of other forums: If you have a user named luluthefirst, please consider to have a close look at this account's actions.
If incidents like that happen again, please don't hesitate to immediately contact me via mail: mail@ut99.org. That's the fastest way to inform me about anything. Thank you!
