For years, the vast majority of Akismet releases have been centered around bug fixes and improving compatibility with various plugins. Version 5.0 was released today, following 4.2.5 earlier this month, with a new feature that should improve Askismet’s ability to detect spam comments. Akismet engineer Christopher Finke explained how the plugin will now analyze how…
When it comes to spam, comments are one of the first things that comes to mind. However, spam user registrations can be just as prolific on sites with open registration. Leland Fiegel, founder of Themetry, has developed a new plugin called Stop Signup Spam that prevents users from registering an account if their email or…
Three years ago Google introduced its new reCAPTCHA v2 API, replacing distorted text challenges with a simple “I’m not a robot” checkbox for validating users. This was a welcome improvement over the fuzzy text in a box that frustrated and infuriated real humans. reCAPTCHA v1 is no longer supported as of May 2016 and most…
Imperva, an international cyber security company founded in 2002, published its 2015 web application attack report. The report includes a thorough analysis of attack data obtained through its WAF or Web Application Firewall. In the report, Imperva’s application defense center group analyzed 297,954 attacks and 22,850,023 alerts on 198 of the applications it protects behind…
Version 2.6.5 of the popular Antispam Bee plugin is out today with a new feature that allows administrators to trust commenters with a Gravatar. The idea for the function was suggested by Caspar Hübinger, a long-time user of the plugin. “Have you ever seen a spam comment with a Gravatar image? I haven’t,” Hübinger said…
For the past several years, Google’s reCAPTCHA has verified a user’s humanity by forcing you to decipher warped, nonsensical text. reCAPTCHA’s method of protecting websites from spam has long put the burden on the user to prove that he is not an abusive bot. This is all about to change as a result of Google’s…
It’s no secret that BuddyPress sites attract a serious amount of registration spam. Plugins such as BuddyPress reCAPTCHA, BuddyPress Security Check, SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam, and BuddyPress Honeypot are either ineffective, inconvenient, or not well maintained. The often-recommended, though unfortunately named, WangGuard plugin is moderately successful at stopping BuddyPress spam, but is linked up to a…
Hashcash.io recently released a WordPress plugin with a unique method of deterring spammers that forces the user’s browser to solve math before unlocking login, registration and comment forms. The project site hints at a coming soon cash feature wherein users can “Make Bots Work For You.” This week Hashcash.io creator Pavel Karoukin elaborated on plans…
WordPress Zero Spam is the latest to join the ranks of anti-spam plugins fighting on the front lines of WordPress sites. The new plugin is based on a simple method created by Mozilla developer David Walsh, whose popular tech blog gets regularly hammered by 8,000+ spam comments per day. In a recent tutorial titled How…
Patience for CAPTCHAs is wearing thin these days. There’s nothing more annoying than being slowed down by a virtually illegible mess of letters and numbers. The audio CAPTCHAs are reminiscent of your worst nightmares and are even more baffling than the visual ones. Despite the fact that everyone groans inside when landing upon a CAPTCHA,…
If you’re new to WordPress, the sudden onslaught of spam that you receive upon opening registration can take you by surprise. Unless you have a solid plugin in place, open registration comes with the wearisome task of wading through new signups to put the axe to spammers who got through. One of the common ways…
Akismet is one of those quiet utility plugins that works in the background of your WordPress site without a lot of fanfare. When it’s doing it’s job, your blog comments stay spam-free and you never think twice about it. Forgetting to activate Akismet on a new site will quickly remind you of just how much…
WPLift.com has published a cool post that looks into the dark economy surrounding WordPress. That is, those who use WordPress in nefarious ways for profit. Examples include spammers, those who buy automated blog comments, hackers, and the unethical practice of reselling GPL products using trademarks and branding.
Akismet is celebrating a huge milestone today. According to its spam counter, it has now blocked over 100,000,000,000 spam messages. Not all of that spam has originated from WordPress powered websites. Thanks to a number of libraries and an API, Akismet can be used on different content management systems as well as services.
Jonathan Dingman over at WPForce.com has published a funny piece that illustrates how comment spammers are able to be so randomly creative with their posts. One of his spam comments contained the entire template of text used to generate random comments. How many combinations of spam can you make with the following template? I {want…