I am evaluating a new user registration problem with the forum, so received this from a user via email:
(you can move this thread to the correct area if you think talking about the spam of forum should be there.)
Sorry for that issues, so I guess you removed all ban list.

So I think just back to delete the topic should be enough, as there are always 3-5 people reading the spam, somehow.
Maybe they are using the "Show unread posts since last visit" like me, so they just open it to mark as read.

Anyways, just curious, how many CPU usage and Disk space has been used for Spammer?
Based on the ban log that having high rate for register like 1 account per 5s, for example 5.9.*.* and 178.63.*.*, it is hitting 10-20 page of ban log...
They should be having the ability to register 50-300 account, I guess...
"I faced the problem too. And the culprit was CryptoPrevent. Myabe he has that program too. CryptoPrevent changes group policy settings to prevent ransmwares from running. What he should do is whitelist pl4sfx.exe."
Hmm, look like I has something to check for it.

But ya, using this way to disallow programs to run is, it will jump out a dialog, I wonder did there are any better ways to disallow Program without dialog.
I know PL can, but it can't detect programs that only run for <1s...
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Anyways, back to topic.
Talking about CryptoPrevent, I wonder how can it ban PL?
Maybe you need to contact him/them, I think?

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Just Google awhile, look like by using Group Policy, you can also whitelist the software that you allowed to run, so I guess this might be the case.