Sudden influx of suspicious subscribers
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I have received 7 new subscribers to my blog ‘Adding Value @ IEDP’ within the past three days, all from outlook emails, and with handles that sometimes seem generated by a bot (e.g. (email visible only to moderators and staff) and
(email visible only to moderators and staff)). I am worried that there may be some suspicious activity, and I was wondering what actions can be taken to address this issue.The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi,
I have received the same messages. Just checked my actual WordPress site and it does not list the new, suspicious followers.
The sending email address is listed as (email visible only to moderators and staff).
Any advice to address this and figure out if it is a potential security issue would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
kyyl -
Hi there,
I have received 7 new subscribers to my blog ‘Adding Value @ IEDP’ within the past three days, all from outlook emails, and with handles that sometimes seem generated by a bot (e.g. [email redacted] and
[email redacted]). I am worried that there may be some suspicious activity, and I was wondering what actions can be taken to address this issue.This issue is acknowledged by a Happiness Engineer in this thread: https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/2?replies=59. They are working on this issue.
Moreover, as strikebuys also suggested, you can remove the followers that you find suspicious. To remove WordPress.com followers visits My Site -> People -> Followers (Here is the URL for you: https://en.support.wordpress.com/followers/). On the other hand, to remove email followers, visit My Site -> People -> Email Followers (Here is the URL for you: https://wordpress.com/people/email-followers/).
Refer this support document for more details: https://en.support.wordpress.com/followers/.
Moreover, if you are getting spam comments as well, you can restrict them by putting them in comment blacklist/comment moderation.
You can write the words that you feel are most common in the comments that you want to blacklist. If you have written this in comment moderation section then whenever any new comment will land in your website with these words in its content, name, URL, e-mail, or IP, it will be held in the moderation queue. And the same applies to the Comment Blacklist.
You can manage this by visiting Discussion setting. Here is the support document for your reference: https://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/.
Moreover, please check if Akismet is uninstalled from your website accidentally. However, it is installed with free sites also, by default. You can check it by visiting My Site -> Plugin. This plugin protects your website from spams. Here is the support document for your reference: https://en.support.wordpress.com/setting-up-premium-services/#akismet
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I have the same issue. My site views have gone up by 1 and suddenly I have 5 new email followers with weird addresses. I decided to remove them all. It looks like bot/spam behavior to me.
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Most welcome, @blackiebg! Glad it works for you. :)
@theporchstories: As I have mentioned in my last message, this issue is acknowledged by a Happiness Engineer in this thread: https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/2?replies=59. The team is working on this issue. Please subscribe that thread to stay updated. :)
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I’ve received at least 30 of these in the past few days, all from strange outlook.com e-mails. Concerned about security issues.
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Tried following the Akismet instructions and it says i have to upgrade to a biz plan to get plugins. The thread above seems to indicate it’s included in all the plans. Is there no security for paid personal plans?
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Hello all, Staff have also advised here https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/weird-followers/page/2?replies=135#post-3064066 that they will provide updates in that thread. If you would like to receive email updates on that topic, you can subscribe to that thread by clicking on the Subscribe to Topic link in the sidebar of that thread. Thanks.
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