# My send to a friend.php is being abused by Spammers.How do I protect against this?

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/my-send-to-a-friend-php-is-being-abused-by-spammers-how-do-i-protect-against-this/157061>\
**Category:** programming\
**Created:** [July 29, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/my-send-to-a-friend-php-is-being-abused-by-spammers-how-do-i-protect-against-this/157061 "2005-07-29T17:51:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![devinstar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e495f1/32.png) [@devinstar](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/devinstar)\
**Post date:** [July 29, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/my-send-to-a-friend-php-is-being-abused-by-spammers-how-do-i-protect-against-this/157061/1 "2005-07-29T17:51:47Z")

</div>

Hi,

I have a .php script which I used in conjuction with a flash interface so users of my site can “send my site” to a friend.

ftp access to my hosting account was closed for a while this week, due to a spammer abusing my script. How do I protect against this in the future, it has caused major headaches this week.

Many thanks in advance.

devinstar

ps.

This is the current script, (I named it email.php which I am sure was an error on my part, I will change this to a less “vunerale name”. What else can I do?)

\<?php  
$sendTo1 = $\_POST[“email1”];  
$sendTo2 = $\_POST[“email2”];  
$sendTo3 = $\_POST[“email3”];  
$uemail = $\_POST[“uemail”];  
$alwaysSendTo = "me@myemailadress.com";  
$subject = $\_POST[“name”] . " thinks you should check out this awesome surf site!";

$headers = "From: " . $\_POST[“name”];  
$headers .= “\<” . $\_POST[“email”] . "\>  
";  
$headers .= "Reply-To: " . $\_POST[“email”] . "  
";  
$headers .= "Return-Path: " . $\_POST[“email”];

$message = "Your friend " . $\_POST[“name”] . " thinks you should check out this site!

[http://www.mywebsite.com](http://www.mywebsite.com)

" ;  
$message .= " **Message from your friend**  
" .$\_POST[“message”] . "

";  
$message .= “mywebsite is a revolutionary surf report website with an animated surf report, how waves work page, surf games and more!”;

$message .= "

Thanks

SURFSIZENOW Team";  
$emails = $\_POST[“email1”] . "

";  
$emails .= $\_POST[“email2”] . "

";  
$emails .= $\_POST[“email3”] . "

";  
$emails .= $\_POST[“uemail”]. "

";  
mail($sendTo1, $subject, $message, $headers);  
mail($sendTo2, $subject, $message, $headers);  
mail($sendTo3, $subject, $message, $headers);  
mail($alwaysSendTo, $subject, $message, $emails, $headers);  
?\>