Wizbang was subject to a massive comment spam attack Sunday. To protect the server our host implemented a chron process to clean the user process at Wizbang, which was causing errors when people tried to leave comments, or when we tried to post. That script has now been stopped, as we’ve worked with Hosting Matters to prevent and/or mitigate future attacks.
Everything is (mostly) back to normal now…
Update: Things are better, but not yet perfect…
Update 2: The issue was more involved that I originally thought. Running the 2004 Weblog Awards on the same MT install as Wizbang was, in hindsight, a recipe for disaster. Thanks to Stacy and Annette at Hosting Matters for helping me identify the problem, and more importantly FIX IT!
Test…
I was hit with a fairly massive spam attack this past week, too. 7500+ messages.
I hate to consider comment registration, but I may have no choice.
But I need V!@gr.a and C!.A.li$ at disc0unt prices! How will I know if my mor.tga.ge has beem approved?
Yes, you probably to need the V!agR@@@!!!
Gee… I wonder who was behind the attack. I just can’t imagine…
This is why I refuse to use Movable Type on any project. Seems like almost every MT blog I read had these problems this past weekend, meanwhile WordPress and ExpressionEngine? Not a peep. 🙂
It’s not something specific to MT published blogs, but particular blogs that publish using MT…SPAM today is used as an attack method against specific sites, who just happen to publish with MT. I had a huge increase in SPAM email last week and week before but the two weeks before the Election, I couldn’t access Blogger (unexplained “network outages that affect some users” [but not all, but I was one of those ‘affected’]), then Yahoo’s php — they said — was “down”, then the Yahoo site repaired that but some other mysterious problem (they never explained, by the way) drove my site into some unreal bandwidth territory such that the site was inaccessible….
Election happened, everything worked a day later. I don’t know what it was but the SPAM aftermath has seemed oddly targeted.
I hope I can post this. I’ll try.
It’s not something specific to MT published blogs, but particular blogs that publish using MT…SPAM today is used as an attack method against specific sites, who just happen to publish with MT. I had a huge increase in SPAM email last week and week before but the two weeks before the Election, I couldn’t access Blogger (unexplained “network outages that affect some users” [but not all, but I was one of those ‘affected’]), then Yahoo’s php — they said — was “down”, then the Yahoo site repaired that but some other mysterious problem (they never explained, by the way) drove my site into some unreal bandwidth territory such that the site was inaccessible….
Election happened, everything worked a day later. I don’t know what it was but the SPAM aftermath has seemed oddly targeted.
I hope I can post this. I’ll try.
Well…interesting: I posted that comment once, and received an “ERROR 404…” message afterward.
I departed the site, returned a minute later and found that the comment not only posted but posted twice, but I still recieve a “ERROR 404” whenever I attempt to comment here.
The multiple comments posting are not being done by me. I just wish that spooky Error thing would disappear.
Well, NOW I receive “Internal Server Error” when I post a comment. The comments are posting but the “Internal Server Error” is the only acknowledgment that they are, unless I return here in my browser to see what’s what.
After my experience in the two-weeks prior to the Election, I dunno. I also tried other webhosting services and that’s worked out really well for me, Kevin…