A new kind of spam/malware?

[balamw]

I've noticed and reported a new kind of spam today.

A newbie user comes along and posts random non-sequitur one line posts in ~5 threads. The payload seems to be in the user's sig, which contains a link to some site.

I'm more concerned that these sites may be infected with malware than just boring spam...

Any way to combat this at the site level? Say newbies can't have sigs or post links until they become members?

B

 

[miles01110]

A newbie user comes along and posts random non-sequitur one line posts in ~5 threads. The payload seems to be in the user's sig, which contains a link to some site.

I'm more concerned that these sites may be infected with malware than just boring spam...

You could just not click on the link and report it.

 

[MacDawg]

I have noticed a little bit of this myself, but it has been going on for a while. Random posts with links either in the post itself or the signature.

I don't know about the capabilities of the site to combat it, but probably the best way is the usual way... report the post. That way the mods can make a case by case judgment and act accordingly.

"When good people in any country (Forum) cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail." - Pearl S. Buck

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[balamw]

I've noticed and reported a new kind of spam today.

You could just not click on the link and report it.

I have noticed a little bit of this myself, but it has been going on for a while. Random posts with links either in the post itself or the signature.

What's new to me about this wave is the moving of the link to the sig.

I'll continue reporting them, as well as the long "HOWTO" posts that are basically just an ad for someone's commercial software.

B

 

[miles01110]

Just don't click on it then

There have been many threads about limiting links for new members. I think it's a good idea, but nothing's changed as far as I know.

 

[balamw]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

If it is malware as I suspect having some inexperienced users click on it and spread the payload far and wide is a bad thing for the 'net as a whole.

B

 

[angelwatt]

I've noticed this for several months and have been reporting them as I see them. There has been discussions here about reducing newbie privileges in this manner, for this reason.

 

[xUKHCx]

This isn't new however thanks for reporting any threads as it is a big help.

When considering issues such as restricting forum features there are obviously two sides to the matter, protecting users / being too prohibitive.

From the ones I have dealt with they are just the generic spam rather than malware.

 

[Consultant]

Actually I have been reporting stuff like that for months.

Sometimes you even get a 1 pixel image in the message area that tries to download a php file (but it doesn't work for Safari, duh!)

Maybe no hot link / html until avatar level for newbies.

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I like turtles! (just joking)