Anti Spam Measure for Forms

I have used a variety of Form Managers on sites over the years. The majority of you should have Contact Form 7 on your site. I have used a standard feature in Contact Form 7 which is a hidden field. Computers can see it, but humans cannot see it, so they do not fill it in. If the form is submitted and the hidden field has data in it, it is not accepted becasue it has been added by a computer so the form is rejected.

It certainly helps in most cases, but I am also aware that some of you seem to have websites targetted from time to time. Here is another simple addition to your forms which may help. It is a simple quiz which will prevent submission unless the answer is correct.

There are standard forms of recaptcha used by Google. It relies on a human interpreting what is in a picture, or pictures. It can be particularly tiresome on some websites. I have also noted a difference in operation of Google Recaptcha with different types of browser. It works very well with Chrome, less so with other browsers.

The following is a simple addition to your Contact Form 7. Download the file by clicking at the bottom of this post and copy the text and insert it just above the entry for the Enter button.

Here is an example:

I have inserted another form control between the message area of the form and the Enter button. Here is what it looks like in the Contact Form 7 Layout. Highlighted in yellow below.

It may look complicated, but it isn’t really. There is a short explanation at the start and a series of questions, each with the response expected like this:

“1 plus 2 =|3”

You can build your own questions for example:

“What is the capital of France?|Paris”

Anyone submitting a message can see the question, but not the answer.

Of course none of this should be really necessary. But unfortunately there is a large group of people that must see some success from sending spam messages otherwise it would not be worth effort.

Will this solve the problem?

I honestly do not know. I am pretty sure with some of the anti spam measures which are often defeated, there must be people who are paid to paste messages into forms. In which case none of these methods will work. But if you are currently plagued with spam messages coming in via the website, this may be worth a try.

Do It Yourself

Locate your contact form by logging in and locating Contact in the side bar. Look for the form(s) and open one. Towards the bottom of the form you will see the text:

[submit “Send”]

Place some line breaks between this and the content above it. Then click on the download button to download the example code. Then paste it into the space you have made. Save the form and then go to your contact us page and test it. Make sure it works and you still receive a message through your website before leaving.

Any problems drop me a line or call me. Click on the button below, you should see the text, copy it, and paste it into the form as described.

Download Code Here (text file) opens in a new window

Handling Junk email

Annoying Spam Messages

I read somewhere last year a scary statistic which suggested that 95% of the email circulating the internet is spam. I don’t know whether it is true or not, but sometimes it can feel that way.

What can you do about it?

Usually the first line of defence is to have some spam detection in forms. This can be a question, or image where you are asked to identify something. These rely on human interaction and image recognition. They can be annoying too, arguably more annoying than the spam they are supposed to prevent. Google has a function called Recapture that is used on many sites. The latest version is very good, but it appears to work most effectively if the user is accessing your site or form using Chrome. If they are not then the images pop up and you are asked to match things. We cannot guarantee that visitors are using Chrome of course.

Another method is a hidden field in a message that a computer can see, but a user cannot. The form logic detects whether some data has been added into the hidden field, and does not send the email if the form has been filled in by a computer.

Personally I tend to try to avoid quizes and image recognition, I think they put people off. But sometimes you get a persistent message coming through your website. I have one case like that now.

Continue reading Handling Junk email

Blackmail via Email

I have received this message, and several of you out there have received them too. It is a bit disconcerting when you see it because it appears it has been sent from your email address to your email address. The person sending it states they have hacked into your email account, which is what it looks like. – Chances are though it is not real. First take a look at an example ( note the highlighted parts):

The format of the message is the same, I have seen it in multiple places over the past month. The message is often an image file embedded in the message, not editable text. The reason they do this is to get around spam filtering which would normally trap messages like this.

The first thing to note is it appears as though it was sent to and from the same mailbox. If that was your mailbox, it means someone has hacked into it? No, probably not. But I can understand why someone would be concerned about receiving a mail like this.

It is seeking payment in Bit Coins which I don’t think can be traced to people, unlike a bank payment or “normal financial transaction”. Which is probably why this scam is operating.

If you get one of these, don’t panic. It is most likely a spoofed message, meaning someone has manipulated the email headers to make it appear that they have sent the message from your email box. By checking the header of the email, it is possible to detect where the email really came from. If the sender address is not via your mail box, it did not come from your mailbox. On the examples I have taken apart they all come from compromised servers which have a newsletter function built into them. Someone has figured out how to use the bulk mailing feature in the newsletter function. So it is highly likely that hundreds of these spoofed messages go out each time. They have also never been the same server, and each server is in a different country. This one came from Argentina, but was initiated from the USA.

Drop me a line if you are worried, I can check the email header (a part of the email that is normally hidden from you).

Why do things go into junk mail?

I thought I would make a few comments on this, as I am asked this question in various ways each month.

The particular problem I was asked to look at related to an organisation using an external bulk mail provider; Survey Monkey.

In this case the client wished to use an external service called Survey Monkey (although it could be any bulk mail provider) to send emails out on behalf of the organisation. An example would be Fred; fred@mycoolsite.org.uk decides to send a survey to Fred’s clients. The email which is sent out by Survey Monkey, says it is from fred@mycoolsite.org.uk so you are more likely to accept it and open it because you know Fred.

However it goes into your junk mail so you never see it unless you choose to look in your junkmail, why?

Have I been Pwned?

No that was not a typo. There is a website that has access to data breach information. It is not clear whether it lists all data breaches in the public domain, or a select few of them. The website asks you to enter an email address into the site, it will check through the information it holds and will respond if a match is found.

I tried one of mine and it returned several results indicating that my email address and an associated password to access an online account is in public circulation. It also shows if your email address is in spam lists as well.

I have seen two sets of results on data breaches, one indicated your email address exists in a list somewhere that is in circulation, (typically a junk mailing list). You cannot do anything about this. The other case tells you the website and your email AND a password is in circulation. In the latter case you should be concerned about it if you were previously unaware.

Google Recaptcha version 2

Personally I use Chrome for most of the work I do from a computer. I may use MS Edge (rarely) or Firefox to test outside of the Google Chrome environment. While doing some of that testing I was surprised to see that it can be difficult to enter some information to get past this Google Recaptcha 2 screen below.

Sometimes I have had to go through 3 iterations to get through. I have noted in Continue reading Google Recaptcha version 2

Do You Send Newsletters?

New recommendations for Newsletters

Some of you are using Mailpoet on your websites to generate newsletters. I have run into a lot of problems sending out my newsletter this month, I have had to send it three times. I checked through my logs and found that a very small number came out last month as well. I have been investigating what has happened. The top two entries in the image below show there is a problem because rather than a 65%+ opening rate, there is a 4% opening rate.

Continue reading Do You Send Newsletters?

Google Recaptcha v1 Withdrawn

YOU ONLY NEED TO TAKE ACTION IF YOU CHECK YOUR SITE AND SEE A MESSAGE LIKE THE ONE ABOVE. IF YOU DON’T SEE THE MESSAGE YOU ARE UNAFFECTED.

It seems that Google have withdrawn Google Recaptcha Version 1 function that is used on some contact forms wef 31/03/2018. Please check your contact form now and see if this has happened to you. It was withdrawn yesterday. If you have this problem on your site nobody can send you a message so it is important to resolve it quickly.

Self Help

This is what you need to do:

This for most people will show a single form or multiple forms. Select a form and open it in the editor and check to see if the bottom most item says New reCAPTCHA.

If you have that on your form, delete it. Then save the form.

Check ALL of the forms on your site if you have more than one. Save each one.

On completion go into your site as a user would, and locate each form and send a message to confirm it is working. Check the form still makes sense as well.

This has removed the Spam Protection mechanism used in this form. So your spam count may go up as a result of making this change. However your visitors can still send you a message.

This particular form plugin is no longer supported by the author, so we should probably find an alternative form. Check back on this site later for a solution that uses the new or an alternative Google ReCaptcha function.

If you immediately start getting hit by an increase of Spam let me know please.

Account Pending Cancellation FINAL NOTICE

Or is it?

I received the following email entitled Final Reminder houseofprayerforallnations.org Expiration SEO. Within the email when you open it is this message which all looks official.

Continue reading Account Pending Cancellation FINAL NOTICE

IP Geolocation and why it may be important

I frequently use something called IP Geolocation to find out where a user is located for forms, enquiries, or any log evidence of someone doing something to try to establish if they are who they say they are.

It does not work 100% but I would say it works in 99% of cases. The router or gateway you use that your network/ computer is plugged into has an address allocated to it by your service provider (BT, Talk Talk, NTL, etc). For most of us the IP address changes from time to time and is referred to as dynamic. They do this to make sure it is hard to run your own web server from home. If and when you reset your router, when it comes back online it will likely have a new IP address. You can find out what your IP address is by clicking on this link. Continue reading IP Geolocation and why it may be important