SpambotCheck

Introduction

This plugin stops spam at the very source. It leverages major DNS and e-mail black list providers to prevent spam sources from registration and login into your site.
SpambotCheck delivers you real-time spam protection which is constantly and diligently being worked on by various international nonprofit organizations.

Feature Overview

SpambotCheck offers simple opt-in configuration for:
- Black-list providers to use
- Points of impact to survey (registration, registration and login)
- Spam ID information to use (IP, e-mail address and/or username)
- Use of CDNs such as Cloudflare
- Regular Expression option for all email lists and IP lists
SpambotCheck allows you to maintain your own personalized local listings:
- White-list (e-mail and/or IP)
- Black-list (e-mail and/or IP)
Get an instant overview of spam attacks targeting your site:
- Log, view and edit spam attack information
- Receive incident notification via e-mail
- Registered users who show suspicious behavior are labeled accordingly
Currently supported black list providers:
- stopforumspam.com
- projecthoneypot.org
- sorbs.net
- spamcop.net
Languages:
- English
- German
- Spanish
- French
- Italian
- Estnian
- Portuguese

SpambotCheck is a small, concise and most importantly a non-invasive plugin, that already offers you about 99.5% efficiency in spam attack protection.
The plugin does not need to inspect any contents and therefore is suitable in all situations where there is not any mail text or submission text available.
And even if you are dealing with text submission in forums and blogs, as long as registration and/or login is required, you might consider to use SpambotCheck in combination with additional content analyzing tools that run afterwards.
SpambotCheck would then be acting as the outer most tier of any composed spam protection stack that provides you with the highest site protection level possible.

Support issues or feature requests are very welcomed at our SpambotCheck user forum.

A special version of SpambotCheck is already bundled with our custom form creator 'visforms' to protect all your exposed custom made forms right from the start.

Your Contribution Matters
If you happen to encounter the unlikely case to be one of the first targets of a yet unlisted spam source, feel free to report to one of the above mentioned black list providers.
SpambotCheck's own enhanced users view provides you with all information you need to easily file a report.

Release Notes:

Version 5.1.0
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 5.x, PHP 8.1 to PHP 8.3
Date: November 11, 2024
New Feature
- PHP 8.3 Compatibility
- Allow for Regular Expressions for whitelists and blacklists (IPs and emails).
- Add Regular Expression Examples.
- Add SpambotCheck IP Test-Helper Plugin to develop and test Regular Expressions for IP whitelist and IP blacklist.
- Add documentation for new feature: Automatic support for CDNs like 'Cloudflare'
Bug fix
- Fixed Fatal Error: SpambotCheckHelper::cleanUserSpambotTable(): Argument #1 ($userIP) must be of type string, null given

Most Recent Release History:

Version 5.0.0
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 5.0 or higher
Date: January 29, 2024
New Feature
- Joomla 5 Compatibility
- PHP 8.2 Compatibility
- Automatic support for CDNs like 'Cloudflare'

Version 4.0.4
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 4.0 or higher
Date: July 17, 2023
Bug fix
- Fix Error on suspicious registration detection: "SpambotCheckHelper::getDateDiff(): Argument #1 ($firstDate) must be of type Date, string given."

Version 4.0.3
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 4.0 or higher
Date: Apr. 14, 2022
Bug fix
- Fix Error on all three backend views (Users/Logs/About): "Error 404: View not found"

Version 4.0.2
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 4.0 or higher
Date: Feb. 17, 2022
Bug fix
- Fix Warning in Joomla Database Maintenance: "Table has the wrong type or attributes for column 'COLUMN' "

Version 4.0.1
Maturity: Stable
System Requirements: Joomla 4.0 or higher
Date: Feb. 16, 2022
Bug fix
- Fix Error during installation: "Typed property pkg_spambotcheckInstallerScript::$versionInstalled must be string, null used" on php 7.4 and 8

November 22, 2018
Release of Version 4.0.0 Alpha for Joomla! 4

November 20, 2018
Changes for Version 3.0.1 (Joomla! 3.9)
Code Refactoring
Support Joomla! Privacy Tool Suite

March 24, 2015
Changes for Version 1.3.13 (Joomla! 3.x):
Removed provider spambusted.com as it stopped its service.
Bugfixes concerning both blacklist and whitelist.
Bugfixes concerning the various filter functions of the component's data views.
Code was thoroughly refactored and comprehensively automatically tested.

February 10, 2014
Changes for Version 1.3.12 (Joomla! 3.2):
Bugfix for Joomla! 3.2.2 UsersHelper::getActions() was changed in Joomla! 3.2.2 and calling it threw a fatal error.
Version is only compatible with 3.2.2 or higher (For Joomla 3.0 to 3.2.1 use Version 1.3.11).

October 18, 2013
Changes for Version 1.3.11 (Joomla! 3.0):
Only check e-mail whitelist when an e-mail is passed.
Only check IP whitelist when an IP is passed.
Changes for Version 1.1.11 (Joomla! 2.5):
Added e-mail blacklist and added a component with several views to manage suspicious users and logged spam attack data.

June 19, 2013
Changes for Version 1.3.10 (Joomla! 3.0):
Handled deprecated and modified functions in Joomla! 3.0.
Changes for Version 1.3.10 (Joomla! 3.0) and 1.1.10 (Joomla! 2.5):
Included script.php to handle flawless auto update.
Changed all tags for language files to a Joomla! compatible format.
General refactoring and minor bug fixes.

April 11, 2013
Changes for Version 1.3.9 (Joomla! 3.0) and 1.1.9 (Joomla! 2.5):
Improvements in finding all super administrators.
Integration of new Joomla! Updater (you can use the update function of the extension manager to find and install updates).

March 21, 2013
Changes for Version 1.3.8 (Joomla! 3.0) and 1.1.8 (Joomla! 2.5):
New parameters added to specifically control admin e-mail notification about spam attacks.
Include full user information (username, e-mail and IP) when logging spam attack information into the database (some of this information haven't been stored in previous versions).
Changes for Version 1.1.8 (Joomla! 2.5):
Allow generic e-mail in the whitelist.
The e-mail whitelist is now a text area having more space.
Check cUrl availability during installation (which was already available for Joomla! 3.0).

January 14, 2013
Changes for Version 1.3.7 (Joomla! 3.0)
Compatibility for Joomla! 3.0.
Allow generic e-mail in the whitelist.
The e-mail whitelist is now a text area having more space.
Check cUrl availability during installation (which was already available for Joomla! 3.0).

Write a review

Should be part of Joomla core

NRVDigital (7).
Posted on 11 April 2013

Spambots are a huge issue, this kind of security ought to be part of Joomla's framework. Does a fantastic job, lets me know when any known spammer IP attempts to register, etc. Love this extension.

Realy great job

Till Sitter (7).
Posted on 27 March 2013

We had massive problems with automated spambot user registrations.

After installing this plugin 99,5 % of Spammbots can't register any more.

Thank you!!

Perfect job

Thomas Hunziker (3).
Posted on 17 March 2013

After my forum got overwhelmed with spam I've decided to try this plugin to block the spammers already at registration level.

I have to say I'm impressed with the result. During the last two weeks the plugin catched almost 1500 attemps, all with the StopForumSpam engine.

I've even disabled the captcha to see how many go through.

A few managed to register but those usually got caught by another spam extension.

I can live with that :-)

Thanks!

Very Impressed

G Stone (2).
Posted on 28 February 2013

It works beautifully; it stopped 15 spambots in one day.

I'm used to having to figure out why an extension doesn't work with my configuration, what needs to be tweaked, where else I have to go for keys, figure out why they don't work, etc.

With this extension, all I had to do was install it and check a couple of settings, and then it just worked.

This should be a part of the core functionality of joomla!

This one really works!

carsten888 (10).
Posted on 15 January 2013

Stopped the spam attacks overnight.

I tried others, but no other catches the spammers so efficiently during registration as this. Most spammers are stopped via the StopForumSpam engine. So make sure that is enabled.

Big thank you to the developer.

Excellent plugin

Finn Frisch (1).
Posted on 09 January 2013

This plugin has efficiently helped solve our problems with spambot registrations. The fact that blocked names are stored in a table is very helpful. By reviewing the table contents, you can on the one hand track the efficiency of your "filtering" and on the other hand you can verify that you don't block real users.

Solved - this one is the best. Really.

David Traver (1).
Posted on 31 December 2012

This is the one. Look no further.

I'm using Kunena forum on Joomla 2.5. It became unusable due to registration spam. I tried every other anti-spam add-on and extension I could find, and almost gave up. Then I tried this one, and it works, stopping all but 5 spambot attacks. It stopped and recorded an amazing 4,295 spambot registration attemtps since installing it on December 12, 2012. Today is December 31, 2012. (That's an average of one spambot attack every six minutes!)

Almost all spam was stopped by the extension using "StopForumSpam" verification. This is demonstrated to me by recording spambot attempts in the handy table added to the database. About a dozen were stopped by the "SpamBuster" check, and three by the "ProjectHoneyPot" check.

This is a wonderful extension that has actually solved the seemingly impossible problem. Highly recommended. Thanks guys, your saved my project. Happy New Year.

Effective In Stopping Spammers

Steve (1).
Posted on 24 October 2012

Upgraded a 1.5 site to 2.5.7 as the older site had attracted spam registrations. Reported these ips to spambusters and checked with other sites. So these were suspect spammers. Added SpamBotCheck and this extension has begun to notify of repeat attack attempts from my known offenders so I am happy that this simple to use plugin should get recognition.

Easy to configure and works.

Use it and sleep some.

Works fine

baijianpeng (100).
Posted on 25 September 2012

After I install this small plugin, it can prorent almost over 20 spam registration attempts every day! Think about this: how many spambot will slip into my website if I have not install this plugin?

So I think this plugin is wonderful! Try it if you got too many spam posts on your Kunena forum.

Essential plug-in!

Robert Morton (2).
Posted on 04 September 2012

I am in the process of developing a Joomla website. Apart from backing up, security and the prevention of undesirables (i.e. spammers) registering and logging onto the website is my main concern. I knew of the StopForumSpam database and wanted a plug-in that could use it. SpambotCheck can use the StopForumSpam database as well as other databases.

The author is contactable and the project is very much alive. When I found some minor bugs the author was very quick to fix and bring out a new version. In fact the author also implemented some extra features that I requested very quickly. The current version (1.1.6) works very well.

Joomla administrators have the ability to set whether each user is checked only on registration or on registration and every login, for peace of mind I prefer (and recommend) to check on registration and every login. Normal users can register and login with no problem.

However spammers who have their details in one or more of the databases that SpambotCheck is configured to check (again set by the Joomla administrator) are prevented from registering and getting added to the user database of your site in the first place. Should a user be added to one of the spam databases after registering at your site then they will be caught next time that they login. A polite message (which Joomla administrator can customise to their own requirements) is issued depending on whether it's a registration or a login denial.

I have no connection with the author at all. Just a very happy/satisfied user of their plug-in.

This is an essential plug-in for any Joomla site to help the fight against spammers!

Display #

SpambotCheck

Version:: 5.1.0
Developer:: Aicha Vack
Last updated:: Nov 12 2024
9 months ago
Date added:: Nov 18 2014
License:: GPLv2 or later
Type:: Free download
Includes:: c p
Compatibility:: J3 J4 J5

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Uses Joomla! Update System

Demo Support Documentation Not available

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SpambotCheck

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