public_html_spambot?

[Jay |]

I've just now got my site unsuspended and found that my public_html directory was renamed to public_html_spambot. Obviously this means it was suspended for spam but I have no basis to work with in order to remove the issue and ensure it won't happen again. Could someone provide me with logs or a statement of some sort that shows what the issues are? Username is cinlx10m. I'm eager to solve the spam issue but I have no basis to do so, help me to help you...

 

[Livewire]

Copying in the response I had in the ticket; I'll ask admins to make sure it's actually emailing the responses as well cause it sounds like it isn't.

Your account was suspended by our administrative staff due to it having thousands of spam signups; it's not listed in the note as having sent spam emails out, but it's likely given the defaults for most forum/wiki software. The spambots will need to be cleaned up, along with any spam they've posted. It's not indicated as to if this was on the forums or the mediawiki install, however both are notorious for having bots post random spam if left unsecured.

To prevent the spammed forums from going live on unsuspension, I have moved your old public_html to public_html_spambot; do not move these live until you are willing and able to resolve the bot attack. If you're not able to resolve the attack by securing signups, I would recommend disabling the software that's been spammed.

 

[Jay |]

Hm, alright. Sounds like a much more benign issue then I had worried. Normally I purge the spam accounts once every month or so (on the mediawiki, forum has no spam issues) but registration can be disabled seeing as we have a separate group that allows edits already that has to be set manually. Thank you!

 

[Livewire]

Not to bump a closed thread, but you may be able to find a captcha plugin for MediaWiki, or other anti-bot systems which may help prevent them from getting signed up in the first place.