Kudos0

Persistence of Spam / Refresh Rates for Cache Servers

Posted: 18-Oct-2017 | 9:47AM · Edited: 18-Oct-2017 | 9:47AM · 1 Reply ·

There have been a large number of spam messages posted in the Tech Outpost board this past week with the words "support number" in the subject line.

I browsed to the Tech Outpost board this morning at ~ 7 AM and saw there were over a dozen of these spam messages posted around 2 AM  (see two examples below). After I logged in to my Norton Account the messages disappeared and I realized that one of the forum mods had already removed these posts from the local server and closed the offending accounts several hours earlier.

This problem might be mitigated if Symantec would:

  1. Improve automated spam filters on the Norton community and do a better job of monitoring initial posts from new accounts for inappropriate content
  2. Increase the refresh rate on the cache servers

I've complained in the past about out-of-date information and the persistence of spam (and potentially harmful links) when I browse the Norton Community without logging in - see Symantec employee Kevin's response about the cache servers and web page refresh rates in the thread State of the Forums.  I hope that Symantec can find a way to prevent these spam messages from appearing in the forum or at least reduce the amount of time they persist on the cache servers.

Replies

Kudos0

Re: Persistence of Spam / Refresh Rates for Cache Servers

Posted: 23-Oct-2017 | 5:28PM · Permalink

I feel your pain. It's frustrating, especially since I'm subscribed to a bunch of things and get a lot of notification when spammers hit pretty hard. A quick search of the text in your screenshot shows that MANY forums have this content, and leave it up. We actively combat spam daily; we just happen to be hit pretty hard in the past week. I know we're not alone - other folks have contacted me about forums that are having a hard time keeping up with the spam. Not excuses, but explanations. We've also implemented some changes today that will dramatically improve the spam situation.

Tony Weiss | Norton Forums Global Community Manager | Symantec Corporation

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