Bots Registering for Attack

New Member Joined: Jun 29, 2004 Posts: 11 Location: USA

This is something that has come up with PhpBB (Standalone version)in where they claim bots are registering and preparing for a possible attack. Some of the PhpBB sites I visit have these bots registered on them.

My question is how to go about adding/modding PHP-Nuke to add visual confirmation when new people register? Is this something we should do?
and/or
How do they determine which user is a bot vs a regular user?

The notice

Phpbb's site where people are reporting it.
Phpbb - part 2

Thanks!!
Any help/ideas appreciated.

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 2:59 pm

Make sure your security code is enabled.
Ensure registration uses the activation email link.

The user info block should show recent registrations but I always check new user registrations with the IP Tracking Module (add-on) or Nuke Sentinel IP tracking facility to see what pages a new user visits - that should give you some kind of indication if they are human or not.

If a new user registers on my site and I see no tracking after a few days, I usually email them. After all, if they went to the trouble of registering, it is usually for a purpose.

Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 4:35 pm

Personally, I disable the login/logout and registration feature of phpBB and point things to the Your_Account module with its security code.

And any robots that hit login.php or profile.php get banned.

Posted: Sun Apr 09, 2006 3:21 am

evaders - wouldn't this mean that registered users are not able to complete their forum profile?
Or is the ban purely on those files IF they are anonymous?