Hi guys, i have a problem with 2 directories in my netwok, today i found 700 spam submissions from different proxies (not real links just weird urls) and my database of links is gone, i lost all the links and descriptions, its weird but the only links remaining are the spam pending links, of course i do regular backups and i'll restore everything in a few hours, but do you know how this could happen and how to avoid this kind of situations ? all the directories in my network are using phpld 2.1.2. thanks for your help!
Are you using any type of captcha or spam guard? Also, wouldn't a title and description be required? If not, an upgrade would be maybe the best solution.
yes am using captcha, also there no free option, this was a serious attack, they bypassed the captcha and used hundred of proxies, the attack lasted atleast 12 hours (they didnt submit the 700 links in the same time), what i want to understand is how i lost the database, how is this possible ?
I'd invest $15 or whatever the fee is and upgrade to the paid version. V3.x is far superior and secure!
i agree $25 is a good investment but when you own really a lot of directories, upgrading all of them become very costy its gonna cost me about $1000 to upgrade all my directories, but now am really thinking seriously about it. thanks for the link i'll see if i can use that too.
Go to the phpld forum and talk to David (the owner). He'd likely to be willing to offer you a discount if you buy in bulk.
thanks, yes i know, the $1000 that i calculated is based in a bulk price , now am just curious to know how did the database drop because of spam submissions
perhaps SQL injection? maybe there is a flaw in the free version. Perhaps they crashed your table and it lost all data. We can only speculate.
infortunately i have no idea about the reason, thats why i posted this thread i thought maybe the same problem happened with another directory owner, but apparently i am the first victim, i wouldnt be angry if it was just about removing spam submissions but when u have 700 links looking like "xxwxdss88.nsds.sx" you know its a personal attack.
I am going to stab at sql injection. It is much more likely than him bypassing captcha so to speak. I think an upgrade is your best move. You can always download your server logs for that day and browse through them, but not sure it will give you too much info related to sql injection.
I think that the database just crashed with so many submissions. I think that you should contact the host and get the server logs. Don't upgrade right now.. I think find the solution to this, if you cannot find the solution only then upgrade.
i did check all the logs, and i dont think its an injection because untill now am still getting those spam submissions from different ips (proxies), yesterday i removed 800 spam submissions and today am still getting them: i just removed the submit button let see if this will stop the spam.
Depending on your scripting knowledge, forms can easily be submitted with no button. Even hitting the return key would submit the form.
okey i just removed the whole submit page, i want to see if this is an injection, normally i dont deal with phpld a lot, i have script which auto submit to all my network at once with different titles and descriptions, i dont get a lot of submissions directly from submitters because i work with seo companies and i use my script to submit myself. anyway thanks guy for ur ideas and help. cheers.