XF 1.5 Urgent: Huge Spam on XenForo 1.5.12 - Request for Support and Advice

Gautam

Gautam

Member
Hello XenForo Support,

I am currently running XenForo version 1.5.12 and recently encountered a massive spam influx that forced me to delete a huge number of spam threads and posts on my forum. I wanted to bring this issue to the community and support team's attention and seek guidance on managing and preventing this spam effectively.

Background:

  • My forum uses XenForo 1.5.12 with minimal customizations.
  • Over a short period, we experienced a surge in spam threads and posts, often containing spam links and irrelevant content.
  • The built-in spam cleaner tool was utilized, but in some cases, spam deletion became challenging, such as spam threads that could not be deleted easily.
  • This situation is exhausting to manage and has significantly disrupted normal forum activity.

I am using reCaptcha. Please tell me how can I address this issue.
 
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In my experience reCaptcha doesn't stop spam but it does deter new members from joining your forum.

I would try setting a question and answer, one that should be obvious to someone interested in your forum's niche. I find that to be 100% effective for months, even years year and when it does fail just set an new one. It's important to set the right question and not something too generic e.g. 'what colour is grass' e.t.c.

Failing that I would look to see what add-ons are available but you would probably need to upgrade your forum first in order to use them.
 
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Gautam said:
So is there anyway I can stop these spam registrations to begin with ?
Click to expand...
You can disable registration, this is unfortunately the only way to fully stop spam registrations.

If significantly reducing spam registrations would be sufficient to you there are multiple options.
 
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I have a solution:

Search for $input['message'] in forum.php and thread.php in library/xenforo/controllerpublic and insert this, translate and put your own words:
$spamWords = 'viagra|cialis|casino|porn|*******|xvideos|forex|escort|loan|investment|fullz|credit card|mortgage|pharmacy|outlet|prada|marketing|seo|maletestosterone|supplements|falsos pasaportes|licencia de conducir|TOEFL|ELTS|falsificación|OxyContin|Roxicodone|Oxycodone|psychic|spells|Mail\.ru|temu|black friday';

$visitor = XenForo_Visitor::getInstance();

if ($visitor->message_count < 10 && !empty($input['message'])) {
$message = $input['message'];

// Patrón básico para detectar URLs (http, https o www)
$urlPattern = '#https?://#i';

if (preg_match('/(' . $spamWords . ')/i', $message) || preg_match($urlPattern, $message)) {
return $this->responseError('Tu mensaje contiene palabras, enlaces o contenido no permitidos.');
}
}
Click to expand...

In conversations.php

$spamWords = 'viagra|cialis|casino|porn|*******|xvideos|forex|escort|loan|investment|fullz|credit card|mortgage|pharmacy|outlet|prada|marketing|seo|maletestosterone|supplements|falsos pasaportes|licencia de conducir|TOEFL|ELTS|falsificación|OxyContin|Roxicodone|Oxycodone|psychic|spells|Mail\.ru|temu|black friday';

$visitor = XenForo_Visitor::getInstance();

if ($visitor->message_count < 10 && !empty($input['message'])) {
$message = $input['message'];

$urlPattern = '#https?://#i';

if (preg_match('/(' . $spamWords . ')/i', $message) || preg_match($urlPattern, $message)) {
return $this->responseError('Tu mensaje contiene palabras, enlaces o contenido no permitidos.');
}
}
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
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Gautam said:
I am currently running XenForo version 1.5.12 and recently encountered a massive spam influx that forced me to delete a huge number of spam threads and posts on my forum. I wanted to bring this issue to the community and support team's attention and seek guidance on managing and preventing this spam effectively.

  • My forum uses XenForo 1.5.12 with minimal customizations.
Click to expand...
Your version seems to have been released in January 2017, almost nine years ago. The world has changed quite a bit since then - maybe worth thinking about upgrading your forum to the actual version? There are a bunch of very effective add ons available against spammers signing up - i.e. the spaminator series by @Ozzy47, the signup and abuse add on by @Xon or the Geoblock add on by @Sim. Those are available for the 2.2+ versions of XF - don't know if also for 1.5.12, the more as there have been more recent releases within the 1.5 series since then.
 
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