One of the main challenges when you create a WooCommerce store is the registration spam. Some attackers will try to continually register accounts and spam the store. Without protection, you might end up having vulnerable data, including from customers. You need to find the right way of dealing with the issue. Here’s what you want to do.
Why WooCommerce stores get spam registrations?
Generally, these attacks appear either from competitors, or hackers that want to access your data. All of that becomes an issue, since you want to address it the best way you can.
Common spam tactics used by bots
Usually, the attacks come in a multitude of ways. For example, they want to drain your resources, and ensure that your website is at risk. Then, they do brute force attacks to acquire credentials and stop your website. In addition to that, they might even use an email abuse system, or they engage in analytics corruption and database bloating.
How spam accounts can harm your business?
Naturally, any attack like this will have a bad impact on your business. It’s challenging because it will damage your reputation. People will be worried about their website and if someone might access their data. And yes, they might even try to find an alternative. And not only that, but registration spam is problematic, dangerous, not to mention it could end up reflecting bad on your trustworthiness.
Best methods to stop WooCommerce registration spam
Now that you know WooCommerce registration spam is dangerous, you have to figure out ways to deal with it. There are different options, depending on the situation. However, the ones listed below are known for being the best, most effective and easier to implement.
Using CAPTCHA and anti-spam plugins
Adding an additional step is always effective, because it will end up making the account creation harder for scammers. Captcha is effective because it will end up requesting additional steps when the user creates and account. And since these scammers try to do that in bulk, things are harder for them. In the case of WooCommerce, we have reCAPTCHA, WordFence Security and other plugins for CAPTCHA.
You should also consider using an anti-spam plugin because that will identify signs of spam and automatically stop it. That’s effective and quick, and there are tools iThemes Security, Sucuri Security and many others. Aside from anti-spam, they also have IP blacklisting, rate limiting, user agent filtering, even country blocks and brute force protection.
How to enable email verification and user moderation?
Email verification can be enabled via installing plugins like WP Email Verification. The plugin will send a confirmation email to new users. The accounts stay inactive until the email is verified. Having this extra step will be challenging, because it puts a thorn into creating a ton of accounts. That’s because scammers need to manually verify.
Advanced security measures for preventing spam
Of course, some scammers are using all kinds of tools to get past simpler anti-spam prevention methods. That’s when you have to try and opt for some advanced security measures, as those might be more effective. And in that case, there are a few things that you can focus on, such as the ones below.
Restricting registrations by IP or domain
Restricting registrations based on domain or IP might help. That’s especially true if scammers use a single, random domain that no one registers from. If that’s the case, you just stop that domain from registering and that’s it. You can also add IP restrictions, which we found to be very useful. That way, even if the person tries to create 20 accounts from the same IP, they can’t, since they are only allowed to create 1 per IP.
How to monitor and remove spam accounts automatically?
You can add these limitations, and they will usually deter attackers from creating too many accounts. Of course, you can also check accounts that have unusual activity, as that can prove to be very problematic. Use plugins to figure out what accounts have activity that’s outside of the usual, and if you do that properly, it will only make the experience better. We highly recommend using this approach, and it can end up offering a better outcome.
It’s always a challenge when you have WooCommerce users trying to register a lot of accounts at once. At the end of the day, you want to improve your security and ensure that you always have the best systems in place to identify any unwanted behavior. It can take a bit to install the right security plugins and features for WooCommerce. And you also need to set them up. But in the end, it’s the best and most effective solution to pursue, and it can literally save you a lot of effort and time. That’s why it’s a great idea to follow these guidelines today!
