Is the security of PF at stake?

[Wrichik Basu]

I am a daily visitor to the Science and Maths Textbooks forum. I have enabled the option to watch the forum, so that everyone time a new thread is posted, I'm notified by email.

Recently, however, I got email notification for three threads that were spam. Two of them were already removed when I visited them to report spam, while one of them was still there and I reported it. The mentors will know what I'm talking of because they have themselves deleted those threads.

I haven't been a member of PF for long, so I don't know whether these spam threads are frequent. I felt that some group of people may be attacking PF to steal information or to hack into the servers to shut down the site altogether.

PF has been very helpful in my study of Physics and in my struggle for acquiring knowledge. I would consider closing of PF as a disaster. I just wanted to ask whether PF is secure and robust to these attacks.

 

[Bystander]

are frequent.

Very.

 

[DrClaude]

Most spam that gets posted is attempting to sell something (mostly "supplements" ). We get very few phising expeditions.

Also, most spam gets caught in our automatic spam filter, so it is only a few that can get send out through e-mail alerts. We do our best to remove all spam, and do not hesitate to report it when something evades the filter and our vigilance.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Most spam that gets posted is attempting to sell something (mostly "supplements" ). We get very few phising expeditions.

Also, most spam gets caught in our automatic spam filter, so it is only a few that can get send out through e-mail alerts. We do our best to remove all spam, and do not hesitate to report it when something evades the filter and our vigilance.

Which means that there is no stake to the security of PF, right?

 

[Borek]

I haven't been a member of PF for long, so I don't know whether these spam threads are frequent. I felt that some group of people may be attacking PF to steal information or to hack into the servers to shut down the site altogether.

Such threads are frequent on every forum. I doubt anyone specifically tries to attack PF to take the site down, most of these spam threads are posted by bots on every possible forum. That being said, be sure @Greg Bernhardt keeps his finger on the pulse while administering the forum, and that every forum Mentor is vigilant.

 

[DrClaude]

Which means that there is no stake to the security of PF, right?

Right. And no threat to you if you don't click the links.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

That being said, be sure @Greg Bernhardt keeps his finger on the pulse while administering the forum, and that every forum Mentor is vigilant.

Yes, we, the members, always have faith on the Mentors and the Administrator @Greg Bernhardt. I just wanted to make sure this isn't some type of an attack, keeping in mind the increasing cases of cyber crime and ransomware attacks.

 

[mfb]

Is the security of PF at stake?

No.

These are humans or bots (typically bots) that register new accounts and make posts. The same actions every regular user here can do, and of course we want users to be able to create accounts and contribute to the forum. This has nothing to do with hacking or security of the forum.
Popular webpages are always the target of these spambots that try to get as many viewers of their spam links as they can. Most of them are caught before they can make a visible post, but a small fraction gets visible until a moderator deletes it and bans the spammer.

Just don't click on the links, and report the thread if it is not deleted yet.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I haven't been a member of PF for long, so I don't know whether these spam threads are frequent.

Spam is a problem, especially if it's patient humans doing the work. However we do an amazing job recognizing it and cleaning it up.

I felt that some group of people may be attacking PF to steal information or to hack into the servers to shut down the site altogether.

Spam attacks aren't designed to and theoretically can't harm the server. They are solely intended to trick and exploit forum users into clicking a link or buying a product for the originators sole personal gain. If you see a thread that looks suspicious please report it.

 

[OCR]

This might not be entirely on topic here, but...
This is a screen snip of some bookmarks I always have showing... and Greg's picture, also... . *

I've noticed that the little icon where the red arrow points, seems to "blink" off and on at times. Anybody else notice that ?

* Two cool ...