geoserver-security under sustained access request attack

[jive]

In the past couple of days we are getting emails sent to geoserver-security-owner@lists.osgeo.org of dummy accounts trying to subscribe.

Is there any way to turn off subscription requests, and manually manage the limited list of members?

[jive]

Anything we can do here? Can we take this list private ...

[strk]

The mailing list owner, I think, can do that from the admin panel

[jsanz]

Options for admins are available at

​https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/admin/geoserver-security/privacy

You can remove the list from being advertised in the mailman lists frontpage, and maybe you can also add the confirm step, but as far as I know there isn't a way to fully remove the subscription procedure and move mailman to an "invitation-only" workflow.

Please let me know if you want me to change those settings for you.

[strk]

I found an old thread saying this is NOT possible with Mailman (to confirm what jsanz is saying): ​https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2010-September/070226.html

As this was 10 years ago I wonder if things changed...

Anyway, it's a python software, maybe we can implement that change. Pythonists reading this ?

[strk]

Another option seems to be tweaking the subscription template: ​https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-users/2005-October/047223.html

[jsanz]

Also, worth noting that you can add regular expressions to the ban list to entirely remove email domains.

​https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/admin/geoserver-security/?VARHELP=privacy/subscribing/ban_list

[jive]

many.png

[jive]

Please see attachment, we are getting hundreds of these subscription requests a week.

Is this mailing list just unlucky, or are others also under sustained attack.

[jive]

From Jukka:

Filtering the incoming mails coming from geoserver-security list mainly hides the issue that we have with the subscription spam. Could it be possible to add recaptcha or anything to stop at least most subscription requests from a robot that some friendly people has obviously hired? The list seems to be handled by mailman and I found some links that feel relevant, like ​https://www.dragonsreach.it/2018/02/26/adding-recaptcha-v2-support-mailman/.

[neteler]

FYI, this mess also affects other lists: stolen email addresses seem to be registered and their respective owners complain about unsolicited subscription to the list managers (incl. me).

[robe]

Is this still an issue? I know we've made several upgrades but we haven't put in recaptcha.

[cvvergara]

Was told by @jive that it can be closed