Spam being sent from server

[jsawchuk]

My server company has informed me that spam emails are being sent from my server

[jsawchuk]

Sorry, this should be under vBulletin 3.8 Support & Troubleshooting

[Mark.B]

You need to ask your host for examples of the spam.

Many hosts do not like the automated subscription and PM emails sent by forum software, and treat them as spam. You need to establish exactly what is being sent out.

If it's not forum emails, then it's likely the server has been compromised.

[jsawchuk]

It's definately real spam (I have some sample emails), and they say it's originating from the forum directory. I've already turned off emails in the vbulletin admincp and deleted sendmessage.php. Is there anything else I can disable or delete in vbulletin to completely rule out that its not coming from vbulletin?

[Paul M]

What do they mean by "it's originating from the forum directory".

Thats not really a sensible statement, e-mail cannot originate from a "directory", so ask them to explain properly what they mean.

[Set3sh]

My server company has informed me that spam emails are being sent from my server, specifically the forum directory.

I'm running version 3.8.8 and the only modification is an image captcha for new users.

I've removed sendmessage.php and turned off email in vbulletin but spam is still being sent out.

I did a directory compare with a 10 month old backup and nothing has really changed.

I've changed all Cpanel, Ftp, MySQL, and the default and only email account password.

What else should I be trying?

Hello,

I suspect you using phpmail which has no security layer to prevent unauthenticated users access for sending emails.
You need to setup both a smtp and imap, configure authentication to use tls and implement security policies (who has the right to send, how many emails to send given a timeframe, sign every email using domain keys etc.).
Should you need more help feel free to contact me.

Kind regards,
George.