Important message from the forum administration! (FAKE PM!!)

[angieskidney]

I thought I better let everyone know that if you got a Private Message saying that it was from DaVita saying "Important message from the forum administration!" that you have a virus on your computer, that it is A FAKE!

DO NOT CLICK THE LINK IN THE MESSAGE!!

I will be notifying DaVita's Jason Walker about this but I just got the message now and was worried that people might fall for it! The good thing is that the spammer screwed up on the link so that the people that spammer was Private Messaging (many at once it seems) was also in the link.

Still, please PLEASE do NOT reply to that spammer and do NOT click on any links from that spammer!!

The spammer is LadyAdministrator and will most likely be banned as soon as the DaVita staff get wind of this. According to my search in blacklists I use for spam prevention on my own forums, I think the spammer is the same one which has been plaguing a lot of forums lately:

http://www.stopforumspam.com/ipcheck/188.72.225.209

[Feelinlost]

GEEZ ANGIE...these idiots are all over the place & sometimes so cleverly disquised...Thanks so much for the "Heads Up"!!!!!

[angieskidney]

Originally Posted by Feelinlost

GEEZ ANGIE...these idiots are all over the place & sometimes so cleverly disquised...Thanks so much for the "Heads Up"!!!!!

Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone to believe it was actually a PM from DaVita. I was worried some people would considering the spammer faked the signature saying it was from DaVita and the name they used seemed official (easily a name anyone could have passed with however) and even uploaded its own avatar (which personally I would not allow just anyone to upload avatars).

The danger isn't really in the message but in the dangerous link incase anyone believed the message and clicked the link..

[ddarling]

I received a PM from "LadyAdministrator", but I automatically deleted it. You can also check the Member List and see what kind of info they have posted there and if they have any other posts, etc.
I had also received another PM from a name I did not recognize, but I don't remember who that was and I'm sure was also a spammer.

[TRB]

Best person to combat spam & treats is one's self. As most, I get tons on spam be it about Viagra or what not. Just use common sense and delete something that you are not sure about. Heck I get spam from me about my admin duties which I know I never sent. It's just a spoofing robot trying to gather ones data. So again just be wise about what one's is clicking on and you have a good chance of not getting harmed by these types of posts or emails.

[NelW]

Hi - thanks for this angieskidney. I also received a personal message but not from Ladyadministrator - mine was a name that looked genuine and was a member, but the message was obviously rubbish. Just deleted so have forgotten the name. Best not to follow any links unless the message is from someone you've already been communicating with.
Nel

[pal]

[QUOTE=angieskidney;29800]I thought I better let everyone know that if you got a Private Message saying that it was from DaVita saying "Important message from the forum administration!" that you have a virus on your computer, that it is A FAKE!

Hi angieskidney,

Thank you so much for the information. I also received the same e-mail and deleted it as soon as I read your posting.

pal

[FMBK]

Thanks, Angie! I did get one alright...in fact, I meant to put up a posting to say I've been getting a number of spam PMs recently and wondered if others are too (obviously, they are!) How does a spammer get to send PMs? That takes time and effort, right? It's very annoying and I didn't expect PMs to be spammed as well as the general forum.

[angieskidney]

Originally Posted by FMBK

Thanks, Angie! I did get one alright...in fact, I meant to put up a posting to say I've been getting a number of spam PMs recently and wondered if others are too (obviously, they are!) How does a spammer get to send PMs? That takes time and effort, right? It's very annoying and I didn't expect PMs to be spammed as well as the general forum.

Yes I have gotten other malicious Private Messages before but this one was the first one to pretend to be an administrator. The one I got before this one was from a ValeryWaw who sent me this message:

Hi **sent to 5 members**
Do you have XRumer 5.0 ?
My friend was recommended this professional tool for promotion my w-site and money earning.
Can you share it? PLEASE!
Or maybe download link.... Thank you. Kiss you...

:-* .....

One thing I have noticed is that some of the spammers (not all) are using a program which automates posting on forums they target depending on security and other search criteria (sometimes search words such as forum topics). These programs now have the ability to specify to post spam in forum posts, or to just Private Message all users. The Private Message spammers usually send PM's to multiple at once (so forums that allow CC or BCC they actually will use that .. as I have noticed DaVita must have a limit set at 5 PM's at once). With 5 PM's per ... let's say .. a second .. at 5 PM's per second .. the spammers spam a LOT of members in a short time. This makes it hard for the administrators to catch them before it happens.

How are spammers able to do this? Well .. they sign up as members. How do the administrators know you from a spammer? Well they can only go by your user name, email address, IP and hostname and any keywords you put into your post or homepage. This is also limited by what ever forum software is being used. DaVita uses vBulletin.

I will post this in hopes that the admins will read it but according to their emails they are on top of the issue:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/art...tin_forum.html

Now it is important for members to realize that no forum is free from spam. The ones that you never see spam on, the staff are just really busy checking the IP's against a black list before the members ever have a chance to post. However, this is not fool proof and there is no way to be 100% sure that it is a spammer until there is proof (a post or PM or a link in their profile). Yes, the staff could check out every single member's profile and compare every single IP but that is really time consuming. I have the time to do that on KidneyKorner.com/smfbb/ only because it is a very small forum that doesn't get a lot of posts any way or that many visitors (most visitors in one day was only 99 and that includes all guests and search bots) and only has less than 200 members (192 to be exact). DaVita on the other hand has almost 5000 members! (4,996 members to be exact at this time of posting)

But even if DaVita staff checked every single member before they even posted (which they have a job .. I don't), some spammers would still get through. This is to be expected with a very popular forum. Popular forums are always a higher target for spammers because that means that spam links will get higher ranks in search engines via link backs of they post their spam links. And some spammers show up clean in black lists as they are not always caught yet (to be in a black list means they have been caught by at least one person). This is because spammers also tend to use different email addresses, different user names and don't always have a static IP (meaning their IP could change all the time as well). An administrators job is very very hard and people do not realize all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Well then .. how do we know that the DaVita staff are even DOING anything???

Simple ... all you have to do is take a look at a forum that is NOT being administrated at all! I know this first hand because I have been given the job of maintaining the old Dialysis Ethics forums even though they moved to new ones that are being administrated. Over there, the admin had disappeared so my job (only a moderator) is to delete spam posts. I can't ban them .. but that means they just come back and post some more. I see first hand what happens when spammers cannot be banned. The word gets out and there is no way to contain them. The new Dialysis Ethics forum is safe (link has a 2 in it because they can't get the old name without getting hold of the old admin) but with the old site still being up .. the spammers are LOVING it.

I just took a look and yup .. I got my job cut out for me .. here is the spam over there:



Why do I bring up that site? Because my point is, if DaVita staff was not doing their job here, the spam would be so much much worse. I know it is frustrating but just keep doing what you are doing. Be smart and report all spam posts by clicking on the triangle symbol which looks like this:

It is in every post so only click on the ones that belong to spam posts:

[angieskidney]

Oh this is GREAT! I just got 2 more spam PMs but this time there is now an alert button in there as well! This is the great part! Now we can handle those ones as well!

[angieskidney]

New spam PM's went out to members. You can now report spammers that spam through private messages but what ever you do do NOT click on spam links! Just click the red triangle as it shows in my last post before this one. See the image where the arrow is pointing?

And then delete that spammer's message to you! NEVER RESPOND TO SPAMMERS and NEVER CLICK ON SPAMMER SENT LINKS!

Also I thought I better add this as it is VERY important. Each spammer who PM's you WILL ask for a read receipt. They do this much like how email spam works. This is so they know that YOUR account here is ACTIVE! NEVER do the read receipt thing. Ignore or cancel or what ever the option is. DO NOT ACCEPT it!

(I forgot to mention that the last time).

[Marina]

I've gotten quite a few PM's as well .......


luckily Angie guided me on this matter.

Thanks Angie!!!

[angieskidney]

Spammers want those links all over the place. Could you edit your post Marina and take out the links and make them like this format:

http:// www. check-pc. net /detected /car...na;Mari;MdGuyS

(You see what I mean? Put spaces in so they are not clickable)

Thx.

And actually there isn't a need to post them here as long as you reported them and deleted them.

This is why I posted screenshots (images) of the spam instead of copy pasting it.

[angieskidney]

Originally Posted by Marina

I've gotten quite a few PM's as well .......


luckily Angie guided me on this matter.

Thanks Angie!!!

No problem. I am glad you came back and edited your post! Putting in the spam links into public posts is not what we want.

Thanks for being so understanding Marina!