We really need to get this one sorted (as a group) as I don't believe I am the only one getting hit by more and more spam set in our forms.
Here is the general background to date:
1) Forms getting hit by auto posting bots.
2) Unable to block their attacks with any of the usual methods (Google reCaptcha, Honey pots, creating customs $_Sessions or Variables)
I believe the source is the programs xRumer and xEvil as these are touted as having the capacity to get past anything in their path.
Here is the content of one of our form posts where they advertised these softwares capabilities:
7-12-2018 | 11:26 AM PDT
name: Shaylagok
email: sheilamaximovna@yandex.com
Topic: 3
comment: Incredible update of captcha solving package "XRumer 16.0 + XEvil 4.0":
captchas solving of Google (ReCaptcha-2 and ReCaptcha-3), Facebook, BitFinex, Bing, Hotmail, SolveMedia, Yandex,
and more than 8400 another types of captchas,
with highest precision (80..100%) and highest speed (100 img per second).
You can use XEvil 4.0 with any most popular SEO/SMM software: iMacros, XRumer, GSA SER, ZennoPoster, Srapebox, Senuke, and more than 100 of other software.
Interested? You can find a lot of impessive videos about XEvil in YouTube.
FREE DEMO AVAILABLE!
See you later ;)
http://XEvil.net/
whoIP: 93.170.187.182
Personally, I think we (the Web Assist Community) should be able to stop these as we are a smaller sub-set of the hackers software targets.
So far I have tried the following:
1) Create a custom hash value and only process the form IF matching values are found.
The idea is that the software could be bypassing our form page and going directly to the processing pages.
2) Google reCaptcha
They (Blackhats) can get past this no problem and I am using the latest version from Google.
3) Honey Pots
Generate a text field that is not shown to humans (either positioned far off page or using css display:none). IF there is a $_POST value matching that field it can be determined as originating from a Bot and do not allow Insert or Send Email code to execute.
4) Home page created Vars - Create a $_SESSION value on the sites home page and only allow form processing IF the Session value is present.
The idea is that most humans will not enter a site on the Contact Form page but rather get there from the home page. This also fails to stop the Bots.
What else can we do? The only saving grace for the bulk of my sites is they have yet to be found by the bots. But this is changing on a daily basis and we (webmasters) are being expected to stop these attacks.
Anyones successful results in stopping spam would be helpful to the Community.