How best to deal with ExpressionEngine registration spam?

Question

I've got a whole load of EE sites under my belt and generally don't have much of a problem with spam. However, one site that I look after is getting bombarded by registration spam lately. It is an extremely low traffic site and was a bit neglected which meant it was running an old version of EE.

I've now updated the site to the latest EE version and gone through double checking that everything was locked down. I've even tried installing Low NoSpam but I'm still getting the attempted registrations.

My initial thoughts were that there was some security hole in this old version of EE. But since I have now updated everything I'm not so sure.

What is the best way to deal with this other than turning registrations off?

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 13 '12 at 12:07

3

Have you changed the Profile Member trigger word to something other than 'member'?

answered Nov 13 '12 at 12:07

Samsull

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Yep. Done that. It's a long, random string. – foamcow Nov 13 '12 at 13:49
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Have you tried adding a honey pot? aka Hon-ee Pot on Devot-ee – Samsull Nov 13 '12 at 13:59

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 13 '12 at 14:59

3

I personally find that RECAPTCHA is the best captcha system out there:

http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/recaptcha

It's ADA compliant, your visitors help translate books and its probably the most popular. Snaptcha would do the trick as well, but I personally think that if you need a captcha (which I hate :)) then go with RECAPTCHA :)

Oh and it's completely FREE too!!

answered Nov 13 '12 at 14:59

Mark Busnelli Jr

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I went with RECAPTCHA in the end. Very quick to install and replace the built in EE CAPTCHA images. So far I haven't had 1 single spam registration whereas recently I was getting 30-40 a day! – foamcow Nov 16 '12 at 00:11
That's great to hear! Definitely nice when addons just seamlessly work! Glad it worked out so well :) – Mark Busnelli Jr Nov 18 '12 at 21:15

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 13 '12 at 12:50

1

I had excellent results with Snaptcha for comment spam - it works for registration spam too. Worth a look.

answered Nov 13 '12 at 12:50

Jean St-Amand

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Seconding this. Snaptcha is quite good. You mihgt also have a look at accessible captcha by Greg Salt. http://devot-ee.com/add-ons/accessible-captcha – Jérôme Coupé Nov 14 '12 at 11:28

How best to deal with ExpressionEngine registration spam?

3 Answers3