Avoiding spam tickets

Hello,

I noticed that, as of late, I am often getting spam messages as support tickets. And this even though I have CAPTCHA enabled for non-registered users (it is always only non-registered users who submit the spam tickets). So I don't know how it is possible that the spam is still coming through.

Is there something that I can do to better stop the spam messages, aside from the CAPTCHA? 
Such as, for example, have something of a filter that doesn't allow certain text in certain fields? 

Thanks.
 

Hi

Maybe the spam comes from contact form? Helpdesk Pro has a plugin which convert email sent from contact form on the site to a ticket

Go to Extensions -> Plugins, please check and make sure System - Helpdesk Pro Ticket From Contact Form is disabled. If it is enabled, please disable it, then continue monitoring to see if spams still happen

Tuan

Hello,

Thanks for your fast reply.

I checked as you recommended, but the System - Helpdesk Pro Ticket From Contact Form is already disabled. So that is not how the spam comes in.

Guess you might want to use a different captcha plugin for now?

Tuan

I am using reCAPTCHA version 2.0 and it works well to keep out spam for everything else.

If you know code, you can check administrator/components/com_helpdeskpro/Controller/Ticket.php, method validateCaptcha

We just use the same code from Joomla core to validate captcha, so if for some reasons, captcha check is bypassed, we could not do much here

Maybe you should set Enable Captcha to just Yes ? That will check captcha for both public and registered users

In theory, spam bots might be able to use an logged in account and in that case, captcha is not checked and could cause spam. Set it to Yes just prevent that

Tuan

If you still get spam after that, consider using this plugin extensions.joomla.org/extension/access-a.../easycalccheck-plus/ as a replacement to see if it helps you better ?

Regards,

Tuan

It is very certainly not coming from registered accounts, and we have not had any fake account registrations for years.

I don't know enough code to understand this myself.

I just also enabled the Invisible reCAPTCHA plugin in addition to the regular reCAPTCHA plugin, maybe that will make a difference? I hope I can use the same site & security key for both plugins.

You might need a different key, I don't remember exactly about it

Also, after setup invisible recaptcha, you will need to go to System -> Global Configuration, change Default Captcha to that new Invisible Recaptcha option so that Helpdesk Pro will use it

Tuan

I just checked on two Joomla websites where I use reCAPTCHA, and I use the same keys on both and they both work, so I think it should be fine.

Thanks for letting me know about the Global Configuration setting, I had forgotten about that. I have set the Invisible reCAPTCHA now and will see if it makes a difference. If not, then I will try the plugin you suggested.

Thanks!