[irc/freenode/web-7.0.git] / content / news / 2017-08-17-spamwave.md

---
author: christel
date: 2017-08-17 10:05:00+00:00
slug: spamwave
title: Spambot attack
category: community
category: general
category: freenode
---

Earlier this morning, the freenode network was hit by a fairly extensive spambot attack, the spambots were distributing links to images that 
users have reported as containing child pornography images. Naturally, we are escalating the attack to law enforcement, but we would strongly 
encourage users to be vigilant and careful not to open links from users you do not know. 

While the attacks are ongoing we have chosen to update the default umodes for users to include +R, please note that this means you will not receive messages from unregistered users and you will need to /mode yournick -R in order to allow those to come through. If you choose to set yourself -R, please be cautious of clicking on any links from unregistered users that you do not know.

At the height of the attack, one of the klines set resulted in a utility bot attempting to ban all users connected to the network, 
I can only apologise for this and we are looking into what happened. 

Again, apologies for the disruption and please be cautious.
Commit	Line	Data
22e3fc33 CD	1	---
	2	author: christel
	3	date: 2017-08-17 10:05:00+00:00
	4	slug: spamwave
	5	title: Spambot attack
	6	category: community
	7	category: general
	8	category: freenode
	9	---
	10
	11	Earlier this morning, the freenode network was hit by a fairly extensive spambot attack, the spambots were distributing links to images that
	12	users have reported as containing child pornography images. Naturally, we are escalating the attack to law enforcement, but we would strongly
	13	encourage users to be vigilant and careful not to open links from users you do not know.
	14
2880dd42	15	While the attacks are ongoing we have chosen to update the default umodes for users to include +R, please note that this means you will not receive messages from unregistered users and you will need to /mode yournick -R in order to allow those to come through. If you choose to set yourself -R, please be cautious of clicking on any links from unregistered users that you do not know.
22e3fc33	16
bf3783fb	17	At the height of the attack, one of the klines set resulted in a utility bot attempting to ban all users connected to the network,
22e3fc33 CD	18	I can only apologise for this and we are looking into what happened.
22e3fc33 CD	19
2880dd42	20	Again, apologies for the disruption and please be cautious.