1000s of SPAM registrations

Hosch

Hi, my system is receiving 1000s of registrations with fake mail addresses (mostly *@mail.ru) the name is a bunch of Cyrillic letters and a URL – no IP adress.
Even turning every frontend module and plugin off didn't stop it. Turning the Joomla site in offline mode didn't stop it. Turning on all the email control buttons in the security tab didn't stop it. When the BotScout limit of 1000 was reached, it continued to spam the registration.
The only thing that could stop it was to restrict new registrations to logged in users in the registration (?) tab (I'm not sure I translated everything right, I'm on German settings).
My Version is AcyMailing Starter : 5.10.1, updating to latest v5 isn't possible any more.
Joomla is v3.9.18
Can they get to my data?
How can I secure my system?
How can I stop this?

Thank you!

jvstratum

Hi,

This is easy to solve as it comes through your Joomla registration form. It is not in any way related to Acymailing.

What you need to do is to generate Google V2 invisible Captcha keys at Google, if you haven't done it already. Then add these keys to your Joomla plugin "CAPTCHA - invisible reCaptcha" and enable the plugin. Next go to Joomla->System->Global configuration, select "Users" in the left menu and make sure Captcha is set to "Invisible Captcha". Then you can enable your registrations again.

When you're in Global config, plase also take some time to check Contact persons in the left menu. Once there go to the tab Forms and check if the Captcha is enabled. If you don't use the forms feature disable it on this page.

As for not being able to update Acymailing, plese raise a support ticket via the contact form on Acyba's website.

Hosch

Sorry, no, maybe I didn't phrase it correctly. The Joomla registration is set as you suggested.
The attack is directly aimed to the Newsletter registration ("I want to receive a newsletter") and the fake mail addresses are written into AcyMailing user database and not into the Joomla user list.

jvstratum

Hi,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Have you tried adding the Google v2 invisible reCaptcha to your Acymailing? You can enable and add your Invisibale Captcha keys in Aymailing->Configuration->Security.

filterverlag

Hi, I would also suggest to activate reCaptcha. Furthermore you could secure backend-login with .htaccess

Hosch

I have to update to v6 and pay for the Essentials version, then.

jvstratum

Yes, you would need a paid version for that. It's well worth the money!