Blog commenters, beware! Spammers might be using your identity to post spam comments on various blogs!!!
Today, I was surprised to see one of my blogger friends, Eihdra, post four spam comments on my blog. She’s a frequent commenter here at GEORYL so this came as a big surprise.
It’s a good thing that WordPress records the I.P. addresses of all commenters. Look what I’ve got when I searched for Eihdra’s name in the WP Dashboard Comments panel:
The comments were posted using the same email addresses (hidden to protect Eihdra’s identity) but the commenters originated from two different IP addresses. The real Eihdra’s comments were posted from an IP address in the Philippines while the spammer’s comments were made from Michigan, USA.
What troubles me is the fact that spammers are now targeting legit bloggers to post spam comments on blogs. It’s an identity theft that all bloggers must be aware of. It’s a good thing that WordPress has this feature of recording IP addresses of commenters because I was able to determine that the recent comments were fake but what about other blogging platform (like Blogger) that doesn’t show the commenter’s IP address?
The internet is really becoming a dangerous place. All along, I thought that all you need to protect are your social security numbers, birthdays and other personal info but now, even your email address can be stolen and used by identity thefts for their unscrupulous deeds.
I would like to request all bloggers who will get to read this post to digg, tweet on Twitter and share this article on Facebook. You can even blog about this incident to inform, warn and protect other bloggers from this kind of identity theft. Let’s look after our fellow bloggers – and hope that they’ll do the same for us.
Hey Gee!
I’ve seen this happen to a few blogger friends of mine. It’s always good if an IP address can be obtained because sometimes it can be coming from a rotating server. I used to be a moderator for a sporting site and those who hacked almost always did so from that type of server. It makes it tough to block those from commenting since it changes.
Anyway, I’ll RT this and hope your Eihdra will be okay!
Wow, I just can’t imagine that spammers will be using that technique to have their posts published. It’s a good thing that I have some controls set in place and these comments weren’t automatically published.
I’m just wondering the effect of this on the blogging world. Those who post hate messages might use a legitimate blogger’s details and may cause gaps/issues between bloggers without them knowing that the cause is a fake message.
by the way, thanks for the RT and for being the first commenter. 🙂
I’ve had this experience before, someone leaving comments using MY old email address. That’s why I decided to change my email address. Now, on my blogs, the contact page only shows my domain emails, not my main email address. Only a few people know about it.
Grabeh noh? I actually have a friend who works for a spamming company. Yes, there’s such a thing. It’s an online job and all they do is spam bloggers. She targets Pinoys and she gets paid for every published comment. It’s good money, but dang, she said it’s pretty sickening. She used to blog also, but spends most of her time now spamming people. LOL. She even admitted to posting on my main blog. I allowed one of her comments to be posted just so she’ll get paid and then I removed it after a month. Hahaha.
may ganun? grabe naman talaga!
Sometimes nababasa ko rin mga spammers copying the comments from our regular visitor. grabe talaga ano kahit ang small world ng bloggers pinapatulan na. paano mo ba na search Gee? will share this sometime. thanks for sharing
sa wordpress kasi pwedeng isearch ang mga comments. nong makita ko ung avatar ni eihdra, i wanted to make sure kung sya nga ba talaga un. i checked the ip and different nga sya.
i just want other bloggers to be aware of this issue, ung possibility that spammers might be using their blogger friends’ identities to spam their blog or post hate messages.
Hala oi, paano naman ang relationship between blogger friendship like what blankpixel’s said? Masira reputation blogs natin sa mga search engines because of that.
that’s why you need to moderate your comments sis because a lot of spammers target posts that had been published months ago, hoping that you won’t monitor them.
oh my, that’s a horrible thing to do. why can’t they use or make their own identity?
oo nga sis… bad no?
yea i experienced the same thing back to few weeks ago! 🙁
oh. too bad caroline. was that the reason you changed your blog?
aww, Thanks for sharing Gee, chinecheck ko din ang Ip’s kasi may feature ang intense debate na nakikita kung anung ip ang gamit… Will RT this one…
thanks jen. that’s nice because even if you’re with Blogger, you’re using Intense debate. Hmmm, was that the reason why you found out that I’m also “chika”? hehehe….
No, I am reading entries on blogs that i’m following on blogger dashboard when I saw you posted a blog entry on your Chika Bits.
hi gee! thanks for informing me about this. will definitely RT and share this on my FB page. i hope those who receive the same comments from malicious people would realize that it’s not really the bloggers’ fault but the works of malicious minds.
thanks bambie. 🙂
This is really threatening Ms. Gee. Internet is not safe anymore! I hate these people! Argh! Protection is what we need now.
hmmm… I wonder how we can do that. The least we could do I guess is to be cautious with anything we do and share online.
I’M PISSED! I HAVE BEEN GONE FOR LIKE A WEEK WORKING MY BU*T OFF AND THIS IS MY REWARD? HOW COULD YOU!!!!! PASALAMAT KA DI AKO PWEDE MAGSALITA NG MASAMA D2 AT SANA NAIINTINDIHAN MO TO!
Sensya na sis,dito na ko naglabas ng sama ng loob, bka mabasa nya pa. I’m still subscribed to this blog so when I read and saw my name,gosh! Feel na feel ko na uminit yung tenga ko, sign ng severe stress. I told my husband and he calmed me down. I need to investigate!!! Kakainis ha! Walang magawa! Pagkakakitaan pa yata ako as per Mhel! Nananahimik ako!
Hay! I actually just woke up and eto sumalubong sken this morning. My day is ruined!
Sis G. Please send me the IP Address and other info you have there. You said my email was used? I need to track pano nya nakuha yun and I’ll give this post a feedback, so others will know what to do.
Thx mga sis! Although I’m sad and mad at least it happened here (sorry again Gee), nainform agad ako kesa sa iba pa yan, bka lumala pa. (: (: (:
I think sa Akismet plugin nacacatch yung ganyan dahil sa IP. Sa other blog ko may ganyan din, identity at comments gaya pero may kasamang advertising links.
Btw Gee, wala akong matinong connection nung sale kaya SMART bro gamit ko at nakihati na lang ako sa nabiling hosting ng friend ko. Til now we’re waiting for Globe people to fix the phone and modem.
this is so sad. do these people really have to use dirty tactics to earn money?
we should really be careful about posting our details online. my husband once cancelled his FB account because of the fear of identity theft. because of that too, I removed most of my details posted in FB.
Be careful everyone, and I hope wala ng mabiktima sa’tin.
wow.. i wonder how they do that.. is it like when we accidentally clicked on something that they were able to get our email adress?.. hayz..
anyway, thanks for sharing and warning us about these spammers.. 🙂
Gee, I presume this spammer used my regular email address that I always use here because my avatar pala showed up in those posts. I figured na dun nya nakuha sa Privacy Policy ko which had my email address and visible to everyone. I took it out, in both blogs.
I had the cable company come over because my internet connection is bundled up with my cable TV. They had this gadget that can hook up within a few meters of my wifi. Apparently, they found out that there are two IPs connected to my wifi about an hour ago. One is the regular IP Address that I use and one that is not mine.
The next door neighbor, a friend, who is an IT expert is using his laptop awhile ago in their terrace and in the rain while using an umbrella. Funny because their internet connection was cut a few days ago. Besides, if he has an internet connection, why is he outside and in the rain?
So, the cableman said that must be the other IP that they detected because as soon as they ask the neighbor what internet provider he was using, the connection suddenly disappeared.
Hay naku, the Cableman said that my wifi was not secured and I did not put a password for it. Plus, the sad thing, since I opened my laptop for sharing, he must have gotten thru my files na din. So, I changed all passwords and buti na lang nawidro ko na yung sa PayPal ko.
I taught this neighbor about online jobs because he’s a friend. I suspect that he’s using Proxy Servers, based on what I have just read and sabe na din ng cableman. Natuto tuloy ako about that and it’s possible pala to gather email addresses and use it for spamming.
Lessons learned the hard way. I haven’t checked all my online accounts yet and I hope wala na sya na-hack na iba.
I already talked to him, brought some of the barangay people while keeping my cool. The cableman said that he’s the only nearest to my wifi and abot pa sya nito.
Pasensya na Gee ang haba ah and if meron pa sa inyo na me ganitong situation na account ko yung gamit, please, please let me know asap.
I’ll post about this later pag relaxed na ko…Haaayyy! Thanks so much Gee!
Nakoh, our next door neighbor din, ‘kala nila, mauutakan nila ako. Eh nag-set ako ng password on our router and even enabled MAC address filtering to be sure no one can connect to our computer without my permission. Me password din ang router ko.
In the world of the internet, we need to be paranoid talaga. Relax ka lang sis. Kapal ng mukha nyang kapitbahay nyo ha. Pero nagawa ko yan dati, parang experiment. I saw 2 wifi networks nung nasa Cebu kami bukod dun sa amin. I tried to access both, avah! Open and naka-share din ang mga folders! Ginawa ko, I saved a text file with the filename “set a password on your wifi and router or imma hack into your computer.txt” I checked after a week ata, ayun, me password na yung wifi nila.
I hope whoever is using your email address to spam people would stop there… spam lang. Change mo rin yung gravatar mo sis. *hugs*
I’d have to agree with Blank Pixels, kapal ng muka ng kapit bahay nyo ha, and to think you helped him learn how to make money online, what a way to show some gratitude!
I hope he wasn’t able to access anything really important on your PC and I hope this doesn’t happen to you again..
I am no longer surprised. A lot of scams are happening over the world wide web, ang iba mas malala pa dito. I have been a victim twice when two of my blogs were hijacked when it was still hosted by Blogger. Now I feel a lot safer with WordPress. This will serve as a warning to all bloggers to be more cautious.
Thanks for the heads up, i have had a couple of friends recently had their email address hacked a password change usually fixes it, but not seen this before.
I am always extra cautious when checking comments i am glad i am now after reading this
Once again thanks
Steve
This is a very informative post sis Gee…thank you so much talaga. This is really scary, kaning mga identity thieves. I received a lot of spam comments everyday din sa blogs ko..mas marami pa ang spams kesa sa real comments…haaiii..unsaon nalang.
Thanks for this information.
This reminds us to always check on the security of the internet connections we are using.
I’m getting emails from people I know which turn out to be spam. The addresses are all yahoo.com — your commenter in Michigan is on the Entrecard network — scrape him out!
oh wow! good eye sis…very resourceful ka talaga…naka experience din ako nyan sa WP blog ko…dko lang pinansin…thanks for sharing.
grabi talaga tong mga spammers ano..kakaloka!
argh! scary! tsk tsk! we really need to be all alert! thanks for sharin sis!
This surprised me, but I don’t know why it does because people seem to be so dishonest nowadays. Sad.
gosh I need to make a second look at my comment box, I saw one that was on the spam box and had Eidhra’s photo, eh dati na syang commenter, bkit napunta sa spam, naapprove ko pa yata. teka delete ko. thanks Gee sa info. okay lang ba kung quote ko na lng ung post mo?
That is so scary how people can gain access to your e-mail accounts na din. Have you read about the Firefox add on that can enable a person to steal usernames and passwords on an unsecured network? Grabe un, but mabuti naman at tinanggal din un ng Firefox. I use intense debate for my commenting system on blogger, it doesn’t sync comments to my blogger dashboard but it also has an IP address thing like WP.
I hope your friend didn’t have anything else stolen from her!
This is scary Gee.. but thanks for being understanding for Eidhra..
thanks for sharing!
i was glad that i came to your blog! your post is truly an eye-opener. thanks for sharing this.
This is really scary…May mga ganun palang tao over the net. And Eihdra’s reaction is normal, at least kalmado pa nga sya.
My blog also received a comment from 2 bedroom hotels from someone but she’s speaking Tagalog..haha so I just thought it just someone I know from the blogosphere..trying to earn money from paid to post comment sites.
Thanks for sharing this info. Scaryyy..
Grabe na talaga tong mga ganito. Siguro what I can advice is that you should at least try to change your passwords every three months just to be sure that your accounts will not be hacked. Tulad ng ginagawa sa mga online banking. Then if you’re going to write it down make sure that it is also encrypted na ikaw lang makakaalam.
you did good, identity theft is really getting bad today. expect my support on this, i’ll blog about this linking to your post. thanks for the warning, sis.
Yeah this is scary! It’s good thing my husband is aware of these things. Guys, my hubby always reminds me not to give my birthdate in some of the untrustful websites. Through this kase, matrack kagad everything, full name, email address, home address. We must also have different email and passwords in our online bank accounts like paypal. We should have a personal email address.
My husband called these type of people LOO (lack of originality) hehehe.
Ayan napaisip tuloy ako hahaha, I removed my email add sa profile. Thanks gee.