CFD Online Discussion Forums - Null/Garbage Posts

As you might have noticed we have been getting a lot of null or garbage messages here lately. We have been busy trying to delete these messages as quick as possible, but they have kept coming without any explanation. The fact that they have always originated from different IP addresses has been confusing - there is normally one or a few people who behave badly again and again, and not a new guy every time.

Now I think that I've finally found the cause of this. A few weeks ago someone posted a hacker related message on the main forum. This message was indexed by a couple of Chinese search engine before I found it and deleted it. Apparantly this message contained a few keywords which hackers search for when looking for vulnerable sites. cfd-online.com is not vulnerable but to check if it is the hacker normally posts a null or garbage message (and do some other tricks...). This is why we have been getting alot of these null/garbage messages lately.

I think that I have found a solution though. When someone finds this hacker message in a search engine they normally click on it and end up at cfd-online.com, getting a message that the post in question has been deleted. I have now changed it so that instead they are forwarded to the cybercrime unit at FBI :) Hopefully this will discourage these Chinese teenagers.

You can see an example of what happens by clicking the URL below (which points to the hacker message at CFD Online which I have deleted):

http://www.cfd-online.com/Forum/main.cgi?read=36954