what's the point of this spam

[wkenny]

My online forms are being spammed (surprise, surprise). Some of these spam entries make some kind of sense in that they contain urls. But what is the point of spam messages such as this

<a href= ></a>

This was the only thing entered to the form. Any ideas?

[thetestingsite]

It's just the beginning and end tags of an anchor.

&lt; = <
&gt; = >

so the above is just:

<a href=></a>

Hope this helps.

[wkenny]

Yes, I realised it was an anchor. I just cannot see the point of sending such a message to my site - what can any spammer get out of this?

[thetestingsite]

usually you get those kinds of messages whenever a "spam bot" messes up and instead of sending the link to their pr0n sites it cuts out the url and just thinks it completed its task. Then again, it could be just some people doing it for the hell of it.

Hope this helps.

[boogyman]

The point of any spam is advertisement / annoyance.

It might have not been a spammer but actually a malicious user attempting to compromise the integrity of that form and gain access to your system.

[wkenny]

Thanks, folks. I think a faulty spam bot is most likely as I get this kind of stuff regularly.

[Nile]

I could make a script for you that doesn't allow spam bots if you want...
or you could use image verifaction.

[wkenny]

Thanks for the offer, Nile. I'm already using scripts to verify input and manage to block most spam in that way, but the odd few get through. I've been looking into caotcha and will probably go that route shortly.

[djr33]

Consider that it might be probing the form to see what happens.