Simple Machines Forum or SMF is a free, professional grade software package that allows you to set up your own online community within minutes.
It’s powerful and comes with a custom made template engine which puts you in full control of the lay-out of your message board and with our unique SSI – or Server Side Includes – function you can let your forum and your website interact with each other. Simple Machine Forum is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software.

Once you have installed SMF, it is important that you secure it as it is usually the target of malicious attacks due to the huge traffic it attracts. You will need to restrict bots from your forum. SMF can be installed with one click via QuickInstall and Softaculous.

How to restrict bots from your SMF installation :

1. Email Activation
• Turn on email activation for all new registered members.
• Login to Admin panel » Administration Center » Registration » Settings
• Choose the method of registration for new members.
• This will not allow new members to post unless they activate their account.
2. Code Verification before posting for new members
• Login to Admin panel » Administration Center » Security and Moderation » Anti-Spam
• Change the value for “Post count under which users must pass verification to make a post” value to 10 (or more if you want).
• This will ask the user to pass verification unless they reach the above amount of posts.

Read full blog post at: https://www.todhost.com/knowledgebase/753/How-to-Protect-a-Simple-Machine-Forum-Website-From-Attacks.html

Thanks op
This is wonderful