SABRE isn't stopping spam registrations

  • Since late May, I have started receiving a huge influx of spam registrations to my site, mostly Hotmail accounts. Now I’m getting daily submissions for ‘Family Guy’ and ‘LED Computer Monitor Review’ stories (totally unrelated to my content and audience). Currently I have SABRE registration to require completion of an image CAPTCHA and a text test (type the nth letter of a random word), and they’re still getting through. Any idea as to what gives, or are there seriously people with nothing better to do that fill out CAPTCHAs and text tests to submit spam story submissions?

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  • Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    It’s just a function of the Internet. Spammers can get through CAPTCHA. This is not unknown. I would suggest Cookies for Comments (which can also be applied to registration), Bad Behavior, and Stop Spammer Registrations Plugin.

    You can also activate the Stealth options of Sabre to harden the protection of your registration process.
    Prohibiting access to users without Javascript capabilities or answering to fast to be average human beings is very effective.

    Best regards

    I also have a significant amount of new registrations that are obviously spam.

    Here is what I use in Sabre:
    Enable captcha test: yes
    Enable math test: yes
    Enable text test: yes
    Tests to perform: all
    Enable stealth test: yes
    Block if Javascript unsupported: yes
    Enable confirmation: by user
    Deny early sign-in: yes
    User’s password: no

    I still get spam users that can register and confirm their registrations. Sabre blocks about 75% of spam registration currently (100% before).

    My thoughts are that either the spammers break all the protections or that they do not use the registration form (maybe then can send a POST request somewhere that circumvent the Sabre protection, I don’t know if that is possible).

    Any idea to block those new spammers?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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