Welcome to RCF - WHF

FTM · Nov 01, 2006

Hey there! wave

I have a question for you all if you don't mind. headbang

I am trying to make my forum (and website) as secure as possible. The forum is a small invite only forum just for close friends and I would like to make sure that no one can see anything.

I am pretty sure I have the security of the forums themselves covered when it comes to the topics and who's online box. I have installed the invite only mod, and made all of the forums registered (hidden) as well as modified the who's online box to not be viewable by guests.

Since I am so new at this I am not familiar with what kind of things can be found if someone that is very familiar with phpbb boards and was out to ruin my board came looking. For example, can someone simply type something like

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

If you are running an invite only forum, you probably don't want Search engines scanning your messages. So you might consider using a robots.txt file to control what can scan your site and where they can go. There is a MOD that you can install that blocks Bad Bots, but you can modify it to block any and all Search bots as well...

Block Bad Bots

There are a lot of Security MODs that you can install too which may or may not be of any value to an invite only site:

Spam Bot MODs

I'm getting a lot of spam bot registrations and spammer registrations now too. I don't know what are the best BOT Registration MODs to install, but there are a lot available in the phpBB MOD Database. Apparently I will be needing to install more than I already have. I can delete them as quickly as they register but it would be nice not to have to do that...

Preventing SPAM - Bots and Humans

I do not have all of these installed, so I can't tell you which would work best for you:

FTM · Nov 01, 2006

Thank you very much for the info about blocking the search engines. I will see if I can figure that out.

Can spambots still register on an invite only board where you need a code?

Nightrider · Sep 25, 2004

No, spam bots should not be able to register on an Invite Only forum, so you really shouldn't have to worry about that...

headbang

KeeKee · Mar 20, 2006

Here is a good article on security.
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=427852

I was getting daily bots registering till I put in the validate email mod and set it to auto ban.
I also used the mod that hides the website and signature fields only a bot would try to fill those out when it does it's autobanned.
Have had one human spammer since but he never validated, I only know he is a porn spammer cause another admin recognized the name and IP.

I wish someone could explain a comment spam to me.

FTM · Nov 01, 2006

Thank you KeeKee, I will check out that info. 8)