7April Russian Spammer

Well, as most of the board members know, the forums were compromised yesterday by a piece of filth spammer. This individual, after signing up for an account, proceded to send out well over one hundred Private Messages (PMs) to members. His PMs contained links to "bad neighborhoods" on the web including adultfriendfinder and malware sites. First, I do apologize to any and all that followed the illicit links and hopefully nobody's PC is permanently jacked. I unfortunately, did not delete the spammer's account until the evening hours.

I have received many messages from users that are 1.) angry 2.) feel violated 3.) want to inflict painful revenge 4.) concerned about the site's security.

There is reason for concern - but in the right context. This guy was a spammer - a pretty clever one. There are many out there; Russia (or at least .ru domains) are a hot bed for illicit online activity. Also, one must assume that since this site is in the www domain that it is accessed by all nationalities for any and all purposes (good intent as well as dubious ones). If we keep our head on a swivel and ensure what we post is neither classified nor sensitive, we can protect ourselves. Lastly, one must always be cautious before clicking on links - that is probably superfluous advice at this time, but noteworthy nonetheless.

There are a few more parameters that I can tweak to crank up the security of the site, but it comes at a cost to the user (less freedom of movement, etc.) Hope it doesn't come down to that - but I will do it if I have to...

Just goes to confirm what we already know, Russians are good at two things - Spam and Mail Order Brides.

Feel free to comment below.

v/r

BASEOPS