Submitted empty CF7

hello @icsevents
a very good practice to avoid spam is change the default input name for example “[text* your-name]” to “[text* name-5464548]”

let me know it has worked!

Dear Erik,
Unfortunately it does not work because they changed name and sent it as Парикхмахер_boiff <[email protected].

How to make the button “Choose file” as required? Then, I suppose it will be no possible to submit CF7 on https://ics.events/journal-of-digital-science/ without attaching the word file.
Is it possible to enter something like this:
<label> Your File (required)
[file* your-file] </label>
Or just add [/file-attachment] at the end of [file* file-945 limit:5000000 filetypes:doc|docx|jpg|jpeg|pdf id:your-file class:file-attachment]?

Is it possible to define an IP address from which these hackers always send me rubbish form without paper for my journal?
All the best,
Dr. Tatiana Antipova,

Ciao @icsevents
you can mark the field as required using the asterisk after the tag name

[file your-file filetypes:pdf|txt]
to
[file* your-file filetypes:pdf|txt]

and no need to be closed (no [/file-attachment], no [/file] )

To get the ip of the user that is sending the email, place [_remote_ip] in your contact form response mail
https://contactform7.com/special-mail-tags/

hope this post written by takayuki can help:
https://contactform7.com/faq/i-get-spam-messages-through-my-contact-forms-how-can-i-stop-them/
https://contactform7.com/2020/07/18/custom-spam-filtering/

I notice that you still have the standard names “your-name” “your-email”, this is one of the reasons why you get spam.
Alternatively, you can install a plugin that filters spam, of which there are many.

Dear Erik,
Thank you for your answer.
I always place the asterisk after the tag name file* but hackers could always sent CF7 without attaching file. How was it possible?

I can not use specific names “your-name” “your-email” because I never know who will submit paper.

Also I have some more problem.
After submitting CF7 my customers do not receive confirmation email on “your-email”.
What do I need to fix so that my users get an email to their inbox that their filled CF7 has been successfully received?

In addition in field “your-email” customers sometimes put wrong/false/nonexistent email.
How to avoid filling the nonexistent email in CF7?

I always place the asterisk after the tag name file* but hackers could always sent CF7 without attaching file. How was it possible?

maybe the malformed tag breaks the required field. can you post your mail form model and the submitted mail template (but remove your personal info!), I think there may be some misconfiguration

What i can recommend you is to install an antispam plugin, there are some for wp_mail and for WPCF7. In your case it will solve the issue without headaches with setting/configurations/code

I have antispam plugin – Akismet.

How can I send you screenshot of my CF7 to check what is wrong?

here on this forum copy and paste the “form” and “mail” modules (removing sensible data).

Form

<strong> SUBMISSION FORM FOR JOURNAL OF DIGITAL SCIENCE </strong>

<strong> Use this form to submit your paper for JDS.  Please use title case for all fields (e.g. Pedro Liberato). <span style="color:#ff0000;"> First Name should be printed before Last Name, e.g. Darya Rozhkova).</span></strong>
<label> Corresponding Author Name (required) 
    [text* your-name] </label>

<label> Your Email (required)
    [email* your-email] </label>

<label> Your alternate Email (required)
    [email* your-another-email] </label>

<label> Paper Title (required)
    [text* your-message] </label>

[file* file-945 limit:5000000 filetypes:doc|docx|jpg|jpeg|pdf id:your-file class:file-attachment]

[acceptance your-consent] I confirm that submitted paper is my own work, that has not been published before, not be under review for any other conference or publication. [/acceptance]

[submit "Submit"]

Mail

Mail
You can edit the mail template here. For details, see Setting up mail.
In the following fields, you can use these mail-tags:
[your-name][your-email][your-another-email][your-message][file-945][your-consent]
To	
[email protected]
From	
Institute of Certified Specialists <[email protected]>
Subject	
Institute of Certified Specialists "Paper Submission for JDS"
Additional headers	
Message body	
From: [your-name] <[your-email]> <[your-another-email]>
Subject: [your-subject]

Message Body:
[your-message]

-- 
This e-mail was sent from a contact form on Institute of Certified Specialists (https://ics.events)
 Exclude lines with blank mail-tags from output

 Use HTML content type

File attachments	
[file-945]

Mail (2)
 Use Mail (2)
Mail (2) is an additional mail template often used as an autoresponder.

You can edit the mail template here. For details, see Setting up mail.
In the following fields, you can use these mail-tags:
[your-name][your-email][your-another-email][your-message][file-945][your-consent]
To	
[your-email]
From	
Institute of Certified Specialists <[email protected]>
Subject	
Institute of Certified Specialists "[Paper Submission for JDS]"
Additional headers	
Reply-To: [email protected]
Message body	
Message Body:
[your-message]
Dear authors,

We received your paper. Thank you for submitting to Journal of Digital Science.

Best Regards,
ICS Committee.
-- 
This e-mail was sent from a contact form on Institute of Certified Specialists (https://ics.events)
 Exclude lines with blank mail-tags from output

seems the bot can use fake image / document to bypass the required file field.

if you want a little more protection i suggest you to change the title of all the mail tags ([text* your-name] to [text* 1231231-name]) if you have not already done so. but in your case you need an antispam because you are attacked by bots a little more “intelligent” than usual.

Dear Erik,
I replace [text* your-name] on [text* 1231231-name] in CF7 but now on page screen appeared just

SUBMISSION FORM FOR JOURNAL OF DIGITAL SCIENCE
Use this form to submit your paper for JDS. Please use title case for all fields (e.g. Pedro Liberato). First Name should be printed before Last Name, e.g. Darya Rozhkova).
Corresponding Author Name (required)
[text* 1231231-name]

and there is no possible to enter any name because this is just sign, not field for filling.
What else I can do?

making a random example I forgot that tags cannot start with a number. use name-454546 and will work

Dear Erik,
I replaced [text* your-name] on [text* name-454546] in my CF7 but spam continues to arrive from the same IP address 91.243.101.52. May I know where this IP address located and stop arriving from this IP?

you are looking for a whois service like this https://lookup.icann.org/lookup

When I entered IP address there I have got the following message:

No registry RDAP server was identified for this domain. Attempting lookup using WHOIS service.

Actually I am in desperate and do not know how to stop above descripted spam. Help me please.

install an antispam plugin. not mine because it’s in development (and it’s too aggressive) but you can find a lot of plugin that act as antispam.