this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Kbin Pornbot alert - looks like a number of bot accounts have taken up residence on kbin and are spamming /m/random with porn (media.kbin.social)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Arotrios@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social
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Looks like we've had a wave of porn bots hit recently. Screenshot is a sampling of what's popping up on my threads feed when sorted by new.

A heads up to @ernest and to folks with magazines that might get hit by these guys. Looks like they're submitting from a couple of different domains, so it's difficult to block them from the user side, and some admin action might be necessary.

EDIT: ernest has removed the accounts and content, looks like all is well.

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[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

DON'T CLICK ON THEM! They use multiple redirects which potentially leads them to load websites in the background that could infect your system.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

F for @DarkThoughts. We salute your sacrifice for the greater good. May your files be encrypted and your antivirus strong.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ublock already nuked the pop up, I had to use an online scanner to check what was even happening because it just closed the tab immediately. Also I'm on Linux, so I feel I am probably not the target audience.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you're on linux, even the fake MILFs in your area aren't interested.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ublock also eats them before they can even feign interest.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hot MILFs in your area are now all dating Ublock.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I got cUckblocked. :(

[–] DeusHircus@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My feed just got completely flooded by them, all from random. All of them have a very sketchy looking URL, might not even be porn but porn-bait with something more malicious on the other end

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Yep - 100% a bot phishing attack - seen it a bunch on other sites I've run in the past. Probably goes without saying, but don't click the links. I've been reporting them as I block so the admins have a paper trail for when they're ready to purge the accounts.

[–] ernest@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Arotrios The magazines have been cleaned up and I've deleted the associated accounts. If this happens again, I'll apply a temporary fix. And if the campaigns cease, I'll work on a more comprehensive solution. Thanks for reaching out.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

@ernest - thanks! Glad I could help - you've built a great space here, and I know what a pain it is to deal with spambots.

[–] AnonymousLlama@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

Not even good porn. Booo

[–] acastcandream@beehaw.org 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

PSA for Mac OS users: get little snitch mini. Best protection against harmful URL redirects and such, especially coupled with uBlock Origin.

[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Click on the server name & block it for all time.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would, but it's not just one server they're submitting - they're pushing multiple domains.

That being said, I think I've reported and blocked all of them, and my feed is clear now - there were about 20 - 30 accounts in total. This indicates that someone manually set them up by going through Kbin's login process - if they had built a bot that could hack the login, we'd probably see numbers in the hundreds.

[–] fisco@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Block the each user, there's about 6 or 7, all on kbin.social, job done..

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I found a bit more than that, but yeah, it was a manageable number on my end to clean the feed.

[–] hariette@artemis.camp 5 points 1 year ago

Ended up having to ban a bunch of accounts from my instance. They just kept coming for a bit.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Update 3:39 PST - another wave of 10 or so just came in - reported and blocked.

[–] GeekFTW@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah just unsubbed from /m/random a few moments ago, fuckin' unreal lol.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Update 11 hours from original post - 12:45am PST - still catching them. Got another 10. It looks like they're firing off roughly every three hours.

[–] Arotrios@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

And still coming in at a rate of about 10 every two hours... 6:30am PST, 17 hours from original post

[–] Brkdncr@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Might need to throttle posts from anyone to a single domain that isn’t already allow listed.