All,
As I am sure you've noticed, there have been quite a few "Dating" spam posts showing up over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, this is likely to continue for a while. Whenever there's a fresh wave of spam attacks, all we can do is weather the storm and kill them on sight. The strategy behind forum spam is to overwhelm lightly moderated or inactive sites to increase the spammer's SEO. Obviously that doesn't work here, and they do eventually figure out it's a waste of their time/money/bandwidth, at which point they move on to softer targets. It just takes a while.
According to some of my colleagues, this particular wave is due to a massive data breach earlier in the year that dumped about 25 million accounts + passwords onto the dark web.
arstechnica.com
It is important to note, this breach does not and did not affect Chronocrash. No Chronocrash accounts were directly compromised in any way. However, it's a common habit for members of forums to reuse passwords that were compromised elsewhere. As you can imagine, the spammers were all over this, and have used them to launch an all out assault on any forum they can find. Again, we'll just keep zapping them until they get the message and find easier prey.
Most of the hijacked accounts are just one and done lurkers, but a few are legitimate, active members. For the moment, I am only cleaning the spam from active accounts. However, if the problem becomes severe enough, I may be forced to issue a spam block (meaning the account, its contents, and any of its associates are completely wiped out and sent to a black list on other forums as well). If you want to avoid this, please see below.
In short, don't use them. Register for a real account.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
DC
As I am sure you've noticed, there have been quite a few "Dating" spam posts showing up over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, this is likely to continue for a while. Whenever there's a fresh wave of spam attacks, all we can do is weather the storm and kill them on sight. The strategy behind forum spam is to overwhelm lightly moderated or inactive sites to increase the spammer's SEO. Obviously that doesn't work here, and they do eventually figure out it's a waste of their time/money/bandwidth, at which point they move on to softer targets. It just takes a while.
According to some of my colleagues, this particular wave is due to a massive data breach earlier in the year that dumped about 25 million accounts + passwords onto the dark web.
Researcher uncovers one of the biggest password dumps in recent history
Roughly 25 million of the passwords have never been seen before by widely used service.
arstechnica.com
It is important to note, this breach does not and did not affect Chronocrash. No Chronocrash accounts were directly compromised in any way. However, it's a common habit for members of forums to reuse passwords that were compromised elsewhere. As you can imagine, the spammers were all over this, and have used them to launch an all out assault on any forum they can find. Again, we'll just keep zapping them until they get the message and find easier prey.
Most of the hijacked accounts are just one and done lurkers, but a few are legitimate, active members. For the moment, I am only cleaning the spam from active accounts. However, if the problem becomes severe enough, I may be forced to issue a spam block (meaning the account, its contents, and any of its associates are completely wiped out and sent to a black list on other forums as well). If you want to avoid this, please see below.
Recommendations
These recommendations will help harden your account from compromise and are best practices in general, not just at Chronocrash.
Password Protection
I highly recommend all members employ password hardening. Always use unique passwords, utilize a password manager when you can, and old school or not, regular rotation doesn't hurt.Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication. You can do this under Password and Security in your account settings.Avoid Shared Accounts
Shared accounts are member accounts who's credentials are intentionally made public for others to use, typically to circumvent registration. The most infamous example is Bugmenot. These shared accounts are not just a security breach, but a form of bandwidth theft. For this reason, it is a long standing policy that any shared accounts are spam blocked on sight - no questions asked.In short, don't use them. Register for a real account.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
DC
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, I'm not that old though >.<