Forum in UNDER ATTACK MODE!

[Neil]

Have just put these forums into Under Attack Mode.

Human Verification needed to log in to stop 10's of thousands of AI Bots from hitting the forums.

Now on all 3 forums and while it is the Forums should run faster and Tapatalk will not work.
There are currently hundreds of forums and blogs now locking down with Under Attack Mode. Very bloody frustration.

[ErrolFlynn]

There is an implication in this that tapatalk is the platform used by the hackers to gain access.

[mic-d]

There is an implication in this that tapatalk is the platform used by the hackers to gain access.

...Forums should run faster but Taptalk will not work...

Thanks Neil, all my other forums using cloudflare have been doing this for a while. Little bit annoying at first but you get used to it. Also any members who use 'remember me' can just click the refresh button and it should log you in.

[Neil]

Under attack is now off... Tapatalk will work on ere again.

Have implemented a a newish beta program program that stops bots from scraping info from forum and blogs etc.

This is now running on all 3 forums after a couple of days trial in WWF which has seen guest numbers hovering around 5000+/- which is more than tolerable.

There are still some 360 bots that are allowed forgot the total number but that's close.

I will be keeping a close eye on all 3 forums numbers for the next few weeks and if needed will put Under attack back on as needed.

Cheers

[mic-d]

I reckon the site is getting absolutley hammered by bots again. Why not leave measures in place?

[Neil]

I reckon the site is getting absolutely hammered by bots again. Why not leave measures in place?

No... Reno's not getting hammered MWF is really getting hammered but here the guest numbers are really low averaging between 700 - 900+ which is negligible and won't cause any problems.

Big problem is currently with MWF. When I take it off Under Attack Mode it shoots up to around 20,000+ in a couple of days, WWF is averaging around between 700 to 900 guests online at any one time, most I've seen on there since taking it off a few days ago was 9,000+ and that's not a problem. However when we have 20,000+ on MWF at the same time as 9,000+ on WWF that can be close to 30,000 on the same server at the same time and this will slow down all 3 forums as well as U-Beaut Shop site as it has in the recent past.

Bots aren't a problem on this site. New posts and threads or the lack of them its the biggest problem. I'm trying to get renovateforum.au on line as a pointer to this forum. his may help as it's closer to the original name and may show up in search engines. Also may not, but worth a try.

[mic-d]

Ah gotcha. thanks Neil

No... Reno's not getting hammered MWF is really getting hammered but here the guest numbers are really low averaging between 700 - 900+ which is negligible and won't cause any problems.

Big problem is currently with MWF. When I take it off Under Attack Mode it shoots up to around 20,000+ in a couple of days, WWF is averaging around between 700 to 900 guests online at any one time, most I've seen on there since taking it off a few days ago was 9,000+ and that's not a problem. However when we have 20,000+ on MWF at the same time as 9,000+ on WWF that can be close to 30,000 on the same server at the same time and this will slow down all 3 forums as well as U-Beaut Shop site as it has in the recent past.

Bots aren't a problem on this site. New posts and threads or the lack of them its the biggest problem. I'm trying to get renovateforum.au on line as a pointer to this forum. his may help as it's closer to the original name and may show up in search engines. Also may not, but worth a try.

[ErrolFlynn]

The bots aren't going to go away. It only takes a few seconds for verification. That's not much of an imposition. Without it, load time is extended and I tend to give up and go somewhere else.

Another thought: Is it time to replace the current software? Perhaps it's too vulnerable.

[ErrolFlynn]

Something else for you to consider. You currently have the following note:

THIS FORUM IS RUNNING IN:
UNDER ATTACK MODE

I wouldn't be half surprised if every website on the web is under attack 100% of the time (to some extent), but it can be managed. As you are doing. I've seen the 'verification' check on other sites. You are not alone with that problem.

Seems to me any newcomer to our three sites, on seeing the above note, might be inclined to back away. I suggest the note be dropped.

For example: I have antivirus software on my computer. When I search, it puts a little green icon next to sites it considers safe, and a red icon next to suspicious sites, and when I hover over them, I get a message saying something along the lines of "danger, go back." And I generally don't go there.

So, here's the thing. With that in mind, you are telling people the same - danger, go back. It's not an encouraging welcome to our sites. Newcomers, on seeing that note, might be inclined to think that if they go there, they will be infecting their own computer with some nasty virus. As that's not the case, I suggest the note be removed.

[ubeaut]

The Under Attack Mode sign at top of page has disappeared because Under Attack Mode was taken off the forums again 5 days ago. The sign didn't appear to have any affect on visitors coming to the site. As we still averaged between 150-400 visitors most of the time the Attack Mode was on and a check of their IPs showed me the vast majority were genuine web surfers along with maybe 5%+ good search engines not the AI Bots that caused all the problems to start with.

Other implementations seem so far to be keeping the bad bots at bay. Will continue to monitor.

Cheers - Neil