cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/177673

Today, a bunch of new instances appeared in the top of the user count list. It appears that these instances are all being bombarded by bot sign-ups.

For now, it seems that the bots are especially targeting instances that have:

  • Open sign-ups
  • No captcha
  • No e-mail verification

I have put together a spreadsheet of some of the most suspicious cases here.

If this is affecting you, I would highly recommend considering one of the following options:

  1. Close sign-ups entirely
  2. Only allow sign-ups with applications
  3. Enable e-mail verification + captcha for sign-ups

Additionally, I would recommend pre-emptively banning as many bot accounts as possible, before they start posting spam!

Please comment below if you have any questions or anything useful to add.

  • SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve got sign ups with applications and a hard captcha set up. My other sites had the same issues, random spam bots. Surprisingly well behaved tbh but I don’t care they’re not welcome.

    • enoqe@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      Well behaved for now, but most likely not indefinitely. They’re either trying to steer signups to particular instance(s), or just paving the way for future astroturfing.