• Best thing about the new tumblr posting feature? It doesn’t mess up your dashboard, you remain at tumblr.com/dashboard after you post.
  • Worst thing about the new tumblr posting feature? It’s scary (at least for now). What if I post in the wrong tumblr? huh :P

How to stop Tumblr spam posts

We’ve all seen weird spam posts on our dashboard about Dr. Dre’s headphones, or winning money at contests, or free ipads or other absurd stuff like that. You might even be a victim yourself (I have been in the past). Same thing happened to my friend Anna (deathbydebauchery) who I’m afraid hasn’t been able to find a solution yet. I’ll try to summarize here what you can do in order to stop your account from posting without your permission and what you can do now to prevent it:

How To Stop Your Account From Posting Spam Posts

  • Before starting, delete any spam posts and ask from your followers to not click links from such posts.
  • And now let’s start from deep.Not all infected tumblrs have to do this but it doesn’t harm checking. Go to www.tumblr.com/blog/[YOUR_BLOGS_NAME]/settings, click to Customize (next to Theme), and click Edit HTML. If you have at least some basic understanding of HTML, search into the script for any suspicious code. In particular, search for some lines of code at the end of the page, between <SCRIPT> … </SCRIPT> and if you find such suspicious code, REMOVE IT. If you don’t have any knowledge of HTML or you can’t find such code, click on “Themes” and choose a new theme for your tumblr. Don’t forget to click “Save” at the end.
  • Go to www.tumblr.com/settings/applications and revoke the access of any applications you do not regognise or you do not use. Remove any untrusted application. (At the moment I allow access to only 2 apps, flickr and instagram).
  • Go to www.tumblr.com/blog/[YOUR_BLOGS_NAME]/settings and search for Post by Email near the bottom of the page. Click Reset. Then, go to the email account which is associated with tumblr and change the password there. And finally,
  • Go to www.tumblr.com/settings/account and change your tumblr password. Here are some rules on how to choose a good password.

In many cases, changing your password will be enough to stop your account from posting spam posts. In other cases you will have to go through all the other steps. 


How To Prevent Your Account From Posting Spam Posts In The Future

  • DO NOT enter your tumblr password into any page asking for it. This can be tricky as fake pages might look exactly like tumblr. If you are going to log in, look at your browser’s address bar and make sure the address is https://www.tumblr.com/login This is the ONLY real tumblr log in page. 
  • DO NOT enter your password in tumblr blogs that ask for it. You can view all public tumblr blogs without having to enter a password. Private blogs ask for a special password which is NOT your main tumblr password. Blogs that ask for your password are infected.
  • DO NOT click into the links of tumblr spam posts or messages you receive. 
  • DO NOT follow tumblr profiles that look like spammers (basic theme, 2-3 posts, name which doesn’t make sense etc.) Unfollow them if you do follow them.
  • It’s good to have different passwords for your email and other services. Try to change your password from time to time. 

To summarise this post in 2 bullets:

  • Do not enter your tumblr password into sites you do not trust. Sometimes a site might look exactly like tumblr without being tumblr (check the address!)
  • Custom themes may include code which makes your tumblr send spam posts. Change your tumblr’s theme to make sure that’s not the case. 

Hope this post can help you. 

~ Alex aka greekdude

storyboard: Brasil: By the Numbers Brasil! It’s Tumblr’s second-largest country, and, last week, the site of two giant Tumblr celebrations, a 1,500-person meetup (#tumblrcuritiba!), and — get ready — a One Direction flash mob (at our Tumblr meetup). Here are a few highlights from the nation that’s the size of a continent. (And yes, gringos may spell it with a Z … the locals, not so much,)
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storyboard:

Brasil: By the Numbers

Brasil! It’s Tumblr’s second-largest country, and, last week, the site of two giant Tumblr celebrations, a 1,500-person meetup (#tumblrcuritiba!), and — get ready — a One Direction flash mob (at our Tumblr meetup). Here are a few highlights from the nation that’s the size of a continent. (And yes, gringos may spell it with a Z … the locals, not so much,)

(via ilovecharts)

Source: storyboard

shortformblog: Of note/concern: Early this morning, we spotted a Tumblr user who was unknowingly having spyware injected onto their reblogs. We could tell this because of code added at the bottom of their pages. No word of how widespread this is, but doing a search shows that multiple Tumblrs are affected by the code injection. Suffice it to say: Be careful what you reblog. EDIT: Some advice on how to avoid the hijack. WTF
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shortformblog: Of note/concern: Early this morning, we spotted a Tumblr user who was unknowingly having spyware injected onto their reblogs. We could tell this because of code added at the bottom of their pages. No word of how widespread this is, but doing a search shows that multiple Tumblrs are affected by the code injection. Suffice it to say: Be careful what you reblog. EDIT: Some advice on how to avoid the hijack. WTF
Zoom Info

shortformblog:

Of note/concern: Early this morning, we spotted a Tumblr user who was unknowingly having spyware injected onto their reblogs. We could tell this because of code added at the bottom of their pages. No word of how widespread this is, but doing a search shows that multiple Tumblrs are affected by the code injection. Suffice it to say: Be careful what you reblog.

EDIT: Some advice on how to avoid the hijack.

WTF

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