Assistance please: with putting a Captcha on my Dreamweaver website

Forums › Desktop computing › Assistance please: with putting a Captcha on my Dreamweaver website

gustov

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#299337 30-Aug-2022 17:29

I require a "Captcha" box added to my "Contact us" web page. Russian spammers have hijack the contact us dialog box and my webhost has suspended my website until we have a Captcha added as the spammers are using it to send our spam emails around the world. My web-host said a Captcha box would solve the problem but in the meantime they have taken my website offline.

The site was created years ago with Adobe Dreamweaver. I called a couple of web companies but they are not interested because they are now not familiar with Dreamweaver.

Is there anyone out there who might be able to assist? Obviously I will pay for this.

Thanks for any advice.

jarledb

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#2961247 30-Aug-2022 17:35

Having made the site with Dreamweaver doesn't tell me much, since you can edit and set up sites with PHP, edit WordPress templates etc. with Dreamweaver.

I am going to assume you have an HTML site with a PHP form? You would have to set up the form to support the Captcha system you want to go for to have it work with your site.

I think your quickest fix would be to add a web form from Google instead of the one you have today.

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freitasm

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#2961251 30-Aug-2022 17:43

Couldn't you put the site behind Cloudflare (and make sure it only accepts requests from IP Ranges | Cloudflare)? You can then create some basic rules blocking access from some countries or at least presenting a captcha on requests from those countries.

This wouldn't require changes on your site and only a firewall change on your provider to allow only those Cloudflare IPs.

jarledb

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#2961255 30-Aug-2022 17:47

freitasm:

Couldn't you put the site behind Cloudflare (and make sure it only accepts requests from IP Ranges | Cloudflare)? You can then create some basic rules blocking access from some countries or at least presenting a captcha on requests from those countries.

This wouldn't require changes on your site and only a firewall change on your provider to allow only those Cloudflare IPs.

It could be that he is using a PHP script that is easy to abuse to send spam. Don't think Cloudflare necessarily would work well to fix that.

Though, if he sets up a Cloudflare rule for "I am under attack" on the page and for the script that is being abused then that might actually work. Although it would be best to remove the script that is being abused.

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#2961257 30-Aug-2022 17:53

The OP could setup a rule on Cloudflare for any request to that page to pass a captcha first. Of course, this is assuming the reason for a captcha is to weed out bots filling the forms.

I don't think the OP is completely clear if the spam is manual or automated. Since the hosting requested a captcha then we are assuming it's automated.

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#2961258 30-Aug-2022 17:56

For example:

Cloudflare challenges · Cloudflare Fundamentals docs

gustov

197 posts

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#2961260 30-Aug-2022 18:06

Thanks for the comments to my problem. The site was set up years ago with php.

Cloudflare is beyond me, but another option is that I simply delete the "Contact us" form altogether and rely on people having to use their email programme to send a message. That seems the quickest immediate solution so i can get the web hoster to put the site up again.

I still have Adobe Dreamweaver 8 to make minor updates in text content to my site but I am not sure what to look for to delete the code that has the "Contact us" form displaying. Can any offer advice on what that would look like and will all the code be on the "Contact Us" page only?

freitasm

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#2961322 30-Aug-2022 21:31

It would probably be more complicated to change the site than putting it behind Cloudflare.

Do you have access to the registrar/DNS settings?

If yes, does the hosting offer a firewall for your site only or is it a shared host and one firewall is used by everyone (i.e. no changes allowed)?

If yes, it would be pretty easy to put Cloudflare in front of your site and block other access.

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paulgr

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#2961488 31-Aug-2022 11:40

My wife had similar issues a few years ago. The solution was to use an secure online form.
She uses a secure online form hosted by Elbowspace with a link to it on her website.
Enquirer is sent to the form at Elbowspace, who then relays the email contents back to her.
Secure, quick and low cost to setup.

robjg63

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#2961594 31-Aug-2022 15:59

paulgr:
My wife had similar issues a few years ago. The solution was to use an secure online form.
She uses a secure online form hosted by Elbowspace with a link to it on her website.
Enquirer is sent to the form at Elbowspace, who then relays the email contents back to her.
Secure, quick and low cost to setup.

I was thinking that something like that sounded the easiest solution.
I have used jotform before.

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richms

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#2961604 31-Aug-2022 16:08

gustov:

Thanks for the comments to my problem. The site was set up years ago with php.

Cloudflare is beyond me, but another option is that I simply delete the "Contact us" form altogether and rely on people having to use their email programme to send a message. That seems the quickest immediate solution so i can get the web hoster to put the site up again.

I still have Adobe Dreamweaver 8 to make minor updates in text content to my site but I am not sure what to look for to delete the code that has the "Contact us" form displaying. Can any offer advice on what that would look like and will all the code be on the "Contact Us" page only?

Clicking email links on websites doesn't work now that everyone is using webmail. In the old days it would open a computers default mail program but now it basically does nothing despite chrome and gmail offering to open the links in gmail.

It sounds like you would be better moving to an activly managed website product like wix or squarespace rather than hosting something that you have noone to develop for on a php site that was made in dreamweaver.

If you dont still have the dreamweaver files then what is on the site is basically uneditable anyway.

Richard rich.ms

gustov

197 posts

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#2961614 31-Aug-2022 16:26

As the original poster I want to thank everyone who has offered solutions. Last evening a fellow Geekzoner sent me a private message offering to assist by changing the "Contact us" form by adding a .bak extension to the relevant script files.

He did this and my "Contact Us" form is no longer displayed and first thing this morning my Web Hoster reinstated my website when they could see there was no "Contact us" form on my site for hackers to hijack and utilise to send our spam messages (still don't know how it's possibe!).

In the longer term I will go through the various solutions offered here, but for now, my site is back up again and potential customers can find me once more.

Thanks again to my very kind fellow Geekzoner for his immediate practical solution, everything good about this forum, (wonderfully administered by Freitasm) was demonstrated here - helping each other!

Thanks again everyone for your ideas.