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:
- Close sign-ups entirely
- Only allow sign-ups with applications
- 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.
Sometimes, security just means not being the low-hanging fruit.
Doing no captcha is like leaving the door open, hoping no-one breaks in, instead of at least closing the door (a closed door decreases chance of break in by near 100%, even if it’s not locked)