A lot of work has been done on the GD Security Toolbox Pro in the past few weeks, mostly related to registration filtering, antispam addon, and CSP addon. The new version will be released on March 18, 2020.
GD Security Toolbox Pro 2.5 is a massive update focused on user registration filtering and antispam addon. There are many new filters implemented to determine if the registration is coming from a spam source or if it is invalid or fake. Similar methods are used for Antispam filtering to identify more spam than ever before.
New methods to stop fake registrations and to fight spam include:
- Check if the URL or email has valid TLD (Top level domain)
- Allow/Deny domains list can use wildcard characters to match subdomains or similar domains
- Check if the email is subdomain based (in 99% of the cases, it points to spam)
- Check email domains against the temporary/disposable domains list
- Check if the DNS records for the domain are valid (check A and MX records)
Other changes include many updates and fixes related to integrity scanner, registration filtering, CSP and more.
The update will be available on March 18, 2020, marking the plugin’s fourth birthday. Right now the plugin is in testing mode, and I expect to smooth a lot of things until the release date and improve how the antispam and registration control are working. Current trends show that antispam got over a 20% bump in the detection rate, and registration control will eliminate almost 50% more requests than before.
Preparations for the next batch of updates are also underway, with the goal to reach version 3.0 later this year with a lot more new features to make it easier to analyze logs, expanded malware detection, share setup endpoints and much more.
