Under attack!

[AdeV]

This morning I got a warning about CPU usage on our server... log in to find over 3500 "guests" browsing our forum!

It's not just here either - the other forum hosted on this server was also being battered.

No harm done, it seems; but the sheer number of IP addresses involved is unreal. Mostly from Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil and a few from China possibly.

I've been adding rules to the firewall to drop the traffic from the busiest suspect IP ranges, but there are so many of them, that I might be catching real users in the fallout. If I do (and you won't see this message unfortunately!) then I apologise. I've got my thinking hat on as to how I can do something a bit more targeted & temporary - a bit like fail2ban but specific to our forum.

[Jo]

Thanks Ade,

The last couple of weeks we have been having lots of applications from Spammers for membership. For the ones from Russian I have resorted to blocking the 'span' of their local IP addresses 

Jo

[AdeV]

Further to the attack from the Far East (mostly)... I've been testing a new firewall package... but it looks like it's being a bit too aggressive & blocking everyone!

Apologies if you were unable to access the forum earlier. I've now disabled it pending further efforts.