Team beta version

Note: This plugin requires HTTPS to function (due to Web Crypto API usage).
The Story: The Forging of the Ultimate Defense
This project began with a simple goal: to create a lightweight honeypot trap to catch basic bots. But during development, we faced a harsh reality: Simple traps are obsolete. Modern AI bots and headless browsers can easily step over traditional defenses. A basic trap was no longer enough; we needed a fortress.
So, we forged a completely new architecture. We added Proof of Work, Behavioral Analysis, and Rate Limiting. What started as a simple honeypot evolved into a 15-layer invisible firewall. Like a samurai’s blade, it operates with absolute precision—completely invisible to your real customers, yet ruthlessly executing a “Silent Kill” on spam bots before they ever reach your inbox or database.
Samurai Honeypot protects every Contact Form 7 and WPForms form with fifteen independent defense layers. 
Each layer contributes a score, and blocked submissions are handled by a 3-Tier Triage System:
<h4>3-Tier Triage System</h4>
<ul>
<li>Tier 1 (Pass): Score below the threshold (default 50) — email is sent normally.</li>
<li>Tier 2 (Quarantine): Score between the threshold and 99 — email is silently suppressed (Silent Kill) and the submission is saved to the built-in Quarantine Log for admin review.</li>
<li>Tier 3 (Drop / Instant Kill): Score of 100 or higher — email is silently suppressed and the submission is permanently dropped without logging. This protects your database from bloat during DDoS or mass bot attacks.</li>
</ul>
Warning — False Positives: Depending on your environment, legitimate emails may occasionally be flagged as spam. Enterprise proxies, strict corporate firewalls, outdated browsers, VPNs, and unusual network configurations can trigger detection layers. You MUST check the Quarantine Log periodically to identify and recover any false positives. The plugin cannot distinguish all edge cases automatically.
<h4>Defense Layers</h4>
<ol>
<li>JS Injection Gate — Blocks bots that cannot execute JavaScript. Tokens are fetched via REST API for full page-cache compatibility.</li>
<li>Polymorphic Honeypot — Decoy field name is cryptographically derived per token (not exposed in the API response), hidden from humans via CSS.</li>
<li>Token Signature — HMAC-SHA256 signed stateless token with IP and Form ID binding.</li>
<li>Time Trap — Detects impossibly fast submissions. Browser autofill is automatically exempt.</li>
<li>Proof of Work — SHA-256 computational challenge via Web Crypto API that forces CPU cost on bots.</li>
<li>Behavioral Entropy — Hash-verified human-like event counters: mouse, keyboard, touch, scroll. Uniqueness tracking detects script reuse.</li>
<li>Headless UA Block — Server-side User-Agent check instantly blocks known headless browsers and automated tools (Headless Chrome, Puppeteer, PhantomJS, Selenium, Playwright, Nightmare, Electron). Toggleable in settings for E2E testing compatibility.</li>
<li>Headless Detection — Detects automated browser environments (navigator.webdriver, plugin count, window.chrome, language count).</li>
<li>UA Age Detection — Scores based on Chrome version age. 2+ years: +10, 3+ years: +20, 4+ years: +30. Bots often use hardcoded old User-Agent strings that never update.</li>
<li>Rate Limiting — Per-IP submission rate limiting with IPv6 /64 normalization.</li>
<li>Replay Protection — Atomic token consumption (INSERT IGNORE) + TTL expiry enforcement.</li>
<li>IP Blacklist — Manually configured IP/CIDR blacklist for known bad actors.</li>
<li>Content: URL Limit — Flags messages containing more URLs than the configured threshold.</li>
<li>Content: BBCode — Detects BBCode link syntax (<code>[url=...]</code>) that never appears in legitimate form submissions.</li>
<li>Content: Denylist — Matches against WordPress Disallowed Comment Keys (Settings > Discussion).</li>
</ol>
<h4>Key Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>3-Tier Triage — Pass, Quarantine (with local log), or Drop. No legitimate message is lost without a trace — quarantined submissions are saved for admin review.</li>
<li>Built-in Quarantine Log — Blocked Tier 2 submissions are saved to a local database table (up to 1,000 entries, FIFO). View date, score, trigger reasons, and full form data from the admin panel. No external plugin required.</li>
<li>DDoS-Resilient Tier 3 Drop — Submissions scoring 100+ are immediately dropped from memory without any database write. This prevents database exhaustion during mass bot attacks.</li>
<li>GDPR Compliant — No cookies, no external service calls, no plugin-specific PII stored. IP addresses are one-way hashed with a site-specific salt before any storage — raw IPs never touch the database. No consent banner required.</li>
<li>Stateless Tokens — No database writes for token generation; prevents DoS via DB bloat.</li>
<li>Zero Trust Client — All client-submitted data is verified server-side with HMAC signatures and hash integrity checks.</li>
<li>Zero Configuration — Activate and all Contact Form 7 / WPForms forms are protected automatically.</li>
<li>Cache Compatible — Tokens are fetched via REST API, so page caching works fine.</li>
<li>Multiple Forms — Works correctly with multiple forms on the same page.</li>
<li>IP Whitelist / Blacklist — Whitelist trusted IPs or CIDR ranges to skip all scoring. Blacklist known bad IPs to add +100 score instantly. Optionally whitelist all logged-in WordPress users.</li>
<li>Headless Browser Blocking — Server-side User-Agent check instantly blocks Headless Chrome, Puppeteer, Selenium, and other automated browsers (+100 score). Enabled by default; can be toggled off for E2E testing.</li>
<li>Content Rules — Detect spam patterns in form content: excessive URLs, BBCode link syntax, and WordPress Disallowed Comment Keys matching.</li>
<li>Trusted Proxy Support — Optional mode for Cloudflare and reverse proxy environments with IP range validation.</li>
<li>Lightweight — Three PHP files, no external dependencies, no jQuery.</li>
</ul>

Samurai Honeypot for Forms

Invisible 15-layer anti-spam for Contact Form 7 & WPForms. Score-based 3-Tier Triage silently blocks bots — no CAPTCHA, no user friction.

Julian Lang

Send Denial – a spam sentinel
This plugin will enable honeypot and other anti-spam techniques (in future versions) to protect your business and mailbox from automated script spammers. In “basic” honeypot mode there will be zero impact on your users. they won’t see a captcha or puzzle to solve, they can just use your websites forms. Plug and play
This plugin will be compliant with GDPR guidelines as it won’t call external apis or databases at all. In future versions there might be a local database table (in your database) where failed submissions (from bots) will be stored so you will have total control over the data.
currently supported (protected) plugins include:
<ol>
<li>Caldera Forms</li>
<li>WPForms Lite</li>
<li>CF7 (Contact Form 7)</li>
<li>Ninja Forms (including ajax submissions)</li>
<li>Formidable</li>
<li>WooCommerce (registration, checkout, login)</li>
<li>Elementor Forms (Pro)</li>
<li>MC4WP</li>
<li>Jetform Builder</li>
<li>Ultimate Member (Registration Form)</li>
<li>FormCraft Premium</li>
</ol>
planned support for the near future:
<ol>
<li>bbPress</li>
<li>Divi Forms</li>
<li>Fluentform</li>
<li>HTML Form</li>
<li>Gravity Forms</li>
<li>BuddyPress</li>
<li>Easy Digital Downloads Checkout</li>
<li>Toolset Forms</li>
</ol>
This plugin will support as many popular plugins as possible for free. There is no intent to sell “premium” anti spam protection in the future. You can help to support costly formbuilders or other paid plugins by donating a little amout to help fund the licenses for the development environment.

Send Denial

Anti-Spam protection for the most popular and widly used formbuilders and plugins. GDPR compliant.

Samurai Honeypot for Forms vs Send Denial