Product Tips - Preventing Spam Attacks

Who doesn't hate spam?

Did you know that Clicktools can help you prevent spam attacks and multiple submissions on your forms? Typically, attackers who access your survey or form will attempt to respond multiple times. This type of attack could be either automated or from a single malicious user.

Here are some tips to help reduce the impact of these attacks:

1- Create a unique link.

Using a unique link (called a personal URL in Clicktools) means that re-accessing the link will just overwrite the previous response. A single response can only be synched once into your CRM environment. You can also have the link expire after the first submission to prevent subsequent completions.

Unique links are available when deploying from Clicktools. If you are deploying directly from your CRM environment, it is possible to create a personal URL with a bit of customization.

Remember that personal links relate only to specific contacts from your CRM or Clicktools environment. If you have a survey or form accessible externally on a website, a Personal URL would not be used.

2- Set multiple responses to 'No' when using a shared URL.

This places a cookie on the respondents browser preventing multiple responses being submitted from the same computer within a 30 day period. Clicking the link again would bring up a previous response.

3- Utilize an introduction page in your survey or form.

Add an introduction page so that the submit button is not available on the first page of the survey. This can help prevent automated attacks.

4- Ask a validation question.

Add a question at the beginning of the survey to validate the response. Something like a text question asking, "What color is a banana?" You can then add a condition to your survey mapping that will only synch data to your CRM environment where the correct value (i.e. 'Yellow or 'yellow') has been entered.

Rose Cruse

Product Manager