[Kall]

Over the past week or 2, I have noticed a significant increase in spammy accounts registered at a couple of my sites, as well as the number of people reporting the same.

It would appear ReCaptcha has been hacked. Recaptcha is the system that presents 2 words to the user, and is supposed to prevent automated scripts making accounts.

The vBulletin team have posted an announcement, advising people to enable the 'Question and Answer' verification option.

Admin CP -> Human Verifications Options -> Image Verification -> Question & Answer -> Save

Once you do that, you can click on 'Add New Question' to add a question and answer.

More Options to Fight Spam

• Restrict any Email-to-Friend or Email functions to Registered Members only.
• Create a Usergroup called 'Validated Members'. Create a Promotion that comes into effect after 1 post. Moderate new members, when their post is approved by a Moderator/Admin, they move into the group with no Moderation of Posts.
• Enable 'Verify Email Address at Registration'
• Ban free email domains (a list is available here: List of Email domains to ban )

Anti-Spam Modifications/Addons

• [GlowHost] Spam-O-Matic - Eliminate Forum Spam (StopForumSpam, Akismet & More...) - vBulletin.org Forum