Methods of finding where spam is coming from

  • Resolved jimmdesign

    (@jimmdesign)


    3 years, 9 months ago

    Hello my name is Jimm, I am a WordPress forum NEWBIE!

    So, I am helping a client with an issue – or at least attempting to. She keeps getting spam messages coming from her contact form (it seems). She is using Elementor and it looks like the spam is coming through the contact form here in that. I have updated a few of the plugins and theme. I am also looking at installing some plugins to reduce form spam.

    My question is, is there a smarter way of detecting where this is coming from? As opposed to a long-winded trial and error method? of tinkering with plugins and complete guesswork. If there is a quicker way it may prevent me from installing unneeded plugins on her website.

    Thank you for your help. For confidentiality, I cannot share the link.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • I’m not sure I 100% understand the question ‘is there a smarter way of detecting where this’? Dose this mean you think it may NOT be coming from the Elementor Form – or your know for certain it is coming from the Elementor Form (e.g. by teh subject line ) but don’t know how to stop it.

    (By the way, if it is the later – then you need to asked Elementor as the Form is a pro add-on.)

    Thread Starter jimmdesign

    (@jimmdesign)

    @alanfuller Hello Alan. That is the challenge, ?? I am trying to find out quickly where the spamming appears to be coming from. On the face of it, I am assuming it is the form. Really, I want to get a method of detecting where it is coming from and nailing it on one hit – if possible. I know some hosts have ways of detecting how where spam can originate. Which would be a bit of a golden bullet in this scenario. (I’m firing a bit blind, to tell the truth, and making educated guesses on where it is probably coming from.)

    So, to rephrase. Is there a more precise way of detecting how spam is flooding my client’s inbox?

    If not, I will have to use trial and error but this may be more costly. In terms of how to stop mailform spam (assuming it is mailform) I have seen things like recapture and “honey pot” that may do the trick. Open to experienced suggestions.

    P.s the client is hosting with WordPress if that helps at all. Thank you for helping.

    You can ask WordPress dot com hosting for support and see it they would examine the logs.

    But if you are just trying to identify where the spam is getting in, I would have thought the first thing to do is to look at the contact form – and set it up so the subject is obvious which form it is coming from.

    In reality, any form, contact form, comment form, login form registration form will be attacked by spam bots – that is just a fact of life in owning a website – so putting effective anti-spam barriers will need to be done anyway ( or not have forms ) regardless of what you discover.

    Thread Starter jimmdesign

    (@jimmdesign)

    @alanfuller thanks Alan. Okay, thank you for the pointers. Getting the host to take a look at the logs could be an option.

    Agreed, my suspicion is the form. I shall have a discussion saying that some new measures may need to be integrated into the contact form to stop the spam. It is quite tricky for me to see which form is coming in from as I’m having to do this all a bit at arms-length.

    Thank you for consulting me!

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