If you have Online Poker Accounts - YOU MUST READ THIS

[Bongo]

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

Bigger bankroll = bigger target.

[tikay]

Surely if someone was actually playing his account the site could determine through the IP address his location and I would hope the site immediately froze his account and if he was chip dumping I would expect the site to freeze the accounts of those to whom he was chip dumping.

Yeah but it still takes the online site months to check into this. Well that was my experience and only when shamed into action did they act. Amazingly after months of no action, and that includes the lame police who were useless I got a response of the ISP shows some guy in China had hacked into my account. I can ensure everybody I do not know anybody in China or make my magic password known to anybody in China, honest.

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

He THINKS - or thought - he was safe. Perhaps this thread will show he was not.

[tikay]

the site - with which, by the way,  I have no connection whatsoever -

I am shocked by this comment - I though you had "connections" & a Tikay Tourney on every poker site in the English speaking world.  

I guess this Mateyboy must be Mongolian or something.  

Behave.....

I KNOW the site very well, I've even worked for them in the past, but I'm not "connected" in any way, shape or form.

The player is British.

[thediceman]

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

Bigger bankroll = bigger target.

I had just cashed out approx £8,500 out of my hacked account and only had £660 in it at the time someone thought it would be fun to gamble away my cash.

Guess the hackers will attack any funds not just the big boys.

[Shogun112]

It seems to me that any monies into a poker site are traceable in lots of ways...

If a hacker gets my password and logs into my account as me and changes my password etc, he would only be able to do a few things with my stored money on there...

- Withdraw it to his bank account - traceable...!!
- Go on a table playing with his buddy, and playing like a fool to let his mate win...  then...  his mate transfers the money to his bank account...  traceable...!! (Even if he played a table with more players, it is going to be the case that his mate would be the biggest money earner from the donks..

If his mate never got the chance to withdraw the money, yes Ip trace might help, but, not so easy if the investigator is in the UK and the perpetrator is in another country, but nevertheless, it is traceable...!!

The poker site would have to be the people to do this tracing, with banks, etc...  Police will get involved but British police do not have much powers over a bank in another country without going through international divisions and consuls, so recovery may happen but it can take a long time...

One example is from a recent situation that I know of..  Some scammer was selling and item on a website...  taking payments by PayPal and also by NoChex...  Once the fraud was discovered and reported to the police, they traced some things and wanted a block put onto the accounts at both places...  NoChex is in Leeds and the fall under UK law, so they did it immediately...  Paypal did nothing, and gave the scammer his money...  eventually the police got his PayPal acct stopped after maybe 1 month after getting there the long way around..

Eventually after approx 1 year, NoChex people got refunds in full, but Paypal only got partial refunds...  The guy was caught by the way and the Fraud Squad did a good job on him, but, the fraud squad told me that it is very hard to prosecute someone who committed a fraud on the end of a PC because even though they trace the transaction to an IP address, to an ISP, to an address...  They go there and there might be 5 people living there and it could have been any of them...  How do the police prove who?

Anyways, as I say, everything is traceable and somehow someone should get there...

[Tractor]

Surely if someone was actually playing his account the site could determine through the IP address his location and I would hope the site immediately froze his account and if he was chip dumping I would expect the site to freeze the accounts of those to whom he was chip dumping.

Yeah but it still takes the online site months to check into this. Well that was my experience and only when shamed into action did they act. Amazingly after months of no action, and that includes the lame police who were useless I got a response of the ISP shows some guy in China had hacked into my account. I can ensure everybody I do not know anybody in China or make my magic password known to anybody in China, honest.

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

I would imagine that if this is a big time high stakes player the site will be  acting a lot quicker, they shouldnt but im sure they will.

The thing i wonder about is how do they prove you had not arranged for someone to log on (abroad maybe), gamble up on the high  stakes table, pushing for big draws etc, spin up style then if it goes wrong blow the lot and pretend youve been hacked?
Tough call from the operators.

[Shogun112]

Surely if someone was actually playing his account the site could determine through the IP address his location and I would hope the site immediately froze his account and if he was chip dumping I would expect the site to freeze the accounts of those to whom he was chip dumping.

Yeah but it still takes the online site months to check into this. Well that was my experience and only when shamed into action did they act. Amazingly after months of no action, and that includes the lame police who were useless I got a response of the ISP shows some guy in China had hacked into my account. I can ensure everybody I do not know anybody in China or make my magic password known to anybody in China, honest.

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

I would imagine that if this is a big time high stakes player the site will be  acting a lot quicker, they shouldnt but im sure they will.

The thing i wonder about is how do they prove you had not arranged for someone to log on (abroad maybe), gamble up on the high  stakes table, pushing for big draws etc, spin up style then if it goes wrong blow the lot and pretend youve been hacked?
Tough call from the operators.

The site have pretty much zero jusidiction in whatever country that they operate in..  It is a police job and they will not put it on a rush job unless it becomes big news...

[tikay]

Surely if someone was actually playing his account the site could determine through the IP address his location and I would hope the site immediately froze his account and if he was chip dumping I would expect the site to freeze the accounts of those to whom he was chip dumping.

Yeah but it still takes the online site months to check into this. Well that was my experience and only when shamed into action did they act. Amazingly after months of no action, and that includes the lame police who were useless I got a response of the ISP shows some guy in China had hacked into my account. I can ensure everybody I do not know anybody in China or make my magic password known to anybody in China, honest.

Seems all very well giving a warning of this issue but if Mr Online Poker Pro has done everything he can do to protect his huge bankroll then god help us little guys. Guess the only options are to quit online play or withdrawal after every session.

I would imagine that if this is a big time high stakes player the site will be  acting a lot quicker, they shouldnt but im sure they will.

The thing i wonder about is how do they prove you had not arranged for someone to log on (abroad maybe), gamble up on the high  stakes table, pushing for big draws etc, spin up style then if it goes wrong blow the lot and pretend youve been hacked?
Tough call from the operators.

Yup, & that's why these cases are so damn difficult for all sides to sort out. Who'd run a Cardroom, eh?

[technolog]

So - techie guys - what are the precautions we should be taking? Someone mentioned a Virtual Machine. Is this a (relatively) pain-free process? Anybody care to give specifics of what to do and what to download?

I use Roboform to store all my passwords and log-ins. It can generate very strong passwords and remembers and enters them for you. It's data is encrypted using AES, Blowfish, RC6, 3-DES or 1-DES algorithms (it says!). You need to enter a master password (which obviously needs to be strong yet memorable?!?) to gain access to your other passwords. Any thoughts on this practice?

I've got a router-based and software firewall with AV & anti-spyware (just the free varieties).

I keep track of all accounts (bank and poker) using Microsoft Money so I would notice discrepancies quickly (hopefully).

I think I'm 'quite' well sorted - above average security I would imagine. I've only ever had one problem and that was when someone spent £230ish at a distant Sainsburys. I spotted it the day after the transaction and informed the bank and they immediately credited the money back.

I am interested in the VM though if someone would be so kind as to elaborate.

[kinboshi]

As an aside, if anyone uses Firefox (which you really should as an alternative to IE), make sure you enable the master password which encrypts all the login passwords that the browser remembers.  Otherwise they are stored on your computer in a plain text file.

[Bongo]

The only secure computer system in the world is unplugged, locked
in a vault at the bottom of the ocean and only one person knows
the location and combination of that vault.  And he is dead.
--Bruce Schneier in "Applied Cryptography"

[totalise]

what I did was have a computer which ONLY had poker programs on it, no MSN/YAHOO, no surfing the web, nothing. Any of that crap was done on a laptop/seperate computer, and when I had finished playing poker, I turned the PC off and used a different one. This is pretty safe overall, and computers are so cheap these days its scandelous how sloppy the big stakes players get with computer security. How can this be exposed, techies?

[Tractor]

what I did was have a computer which ONLY had poker programs on it, no MSN/YAHOO, no surfing the web, nothing. Any of that crap was done on a laptop/seperate computer, and when I had finished playing poker, I turned the PC off and used a different one. This is pretty safe overall, and computers are so cheap these days its scandelous how sloppy the big stakes players get with computer security. How can this be exposed, techies?

I think that sounds pretty safe, the only possible way i can see a problem is if there is a program that can go accross all machines on your network for instance.
ie-program(virus or whatever) gets downloaded onto your laptop then gets to your poker pc via your network,
i dont think that can/would happen but its the only thing i can think of.
Im sure the real techheads will soon have there say

[Bongo]

That sounds like a smart plan, the benefit of a virtual machine over that is that if something malicious gets on the PC it is wiped clean the next time you fire it up.

As long as you stick to the nothing but poker rules, and had good firewall (with all unneeded programs/ports etc blocked) then it would be pretty hard to attack the computer. Also make sure your local network is blocked too - some firewalls are configured to trust this, which could lead to your security being compromised.

If they get access to your network they could possibly do some form of packet sniffing from your other computers (or from their own if you have wireless and they are in your locality).

You could still fall for some social engineering on the other machine and manage to give out your password/security question etc (porn star name, anyone?)

It's also possible they could guess/brute force your password - this would be far easier on a site where your display name is your user name (as they wouldn't have to figure out what that was too!)

And that assumes the poker site is totally secure at their end...

[AndrewT]

It seems to me that any monies into a poker site are traceable in lots of ways...

If a hacker gets my password and logs into my account as me and changes my password etc, he would only be able to do a few things with my stored money on there...

- Withdraw it to his bank account - traceable...!!
- Go on a table playing with his buddy, and playing like a fool to let his mate win...  then...  his mate transfers the money to his bank account...  traceable...!! (Even if he played a table with more players, it is going to be the case that his mate would be the biggest money earner from the donks..

Or he could dump it to Mate 1, who then dumps it to Mate 2, who dumps it to Mate 3, who withdraws to Neteller, or Click2Pay, or ECOcard. By the time the poker room have unravelled the trail of chip-dumping, the money is long gone via channels not open to investigation by British police.