Accept no substitutes

The Evil that is out there (computer version)

No Comment: First, we get comment-spammed to death on every variety of blog on ibiblio. I set up authimage and all is happy (except you guys quit commenting) for me. The Moveable Type comment-spam drove the load on our servers through the roof. Fred and John were on top of that and we are undercontrol there.

Santy: Yesterday and last night, we, like every place that has anyone running phpBB, were attacked by the NeverEverNoSanity worm (aka Santy). Only a few sites were hit, but it was not pretty. John spent the evening before his travels patching all 30 or so of the not updated phpBB sites that we could find on ibiblio. Like many ISPs and universities, we’re still finding defaced sites and instances of the worm.
UPDATE We had more hits and defacings than we first realized, but Fred, Josh and John are far along on the clean-up. The final toll may be as much as 30 sites at least partially defaced. Luckily, the restoration of those sites has mostly gone quickly.

Background Reading: I’m at the same time reviewing a chapter for an upcoming computer security book on spam. One line sticks in my mind: research shows that there are only about 200 active spammers in the world at one time, but they generate more spam than three times the population of the earth every 24 hours.

2 Comments

  1. Jason

    I just installed Spam Karma (http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/spam-karma/) and thus far it’s been great. Take a look if you’re looking for a more automatic way of dealing with spam.

  2. Ruby Sinreich

    I use a plug-in that requires each commenter to validate their e-mail address. It’s a bit of a pain, but it stops spammers cold (which isn’t why I use it, but it’s a happy side-effect).

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