Tuesday, June 07, 2016

What's the latest with Spyware online poker-cheat hack-attacks?

Win32/Spy.Odlanor Evil
We have known for sometime about the devastating effects on the online poker world of the Spyware Win32/Spy.Odlanor. This trojan spyware is usaully installed on an online poker victim's computer without his being aware. It happens when the victim downloads and infected app or software onto his computer.

Once in place, the Odlanor malware creates screenshots of the victim's computer when he is on the targeted poker site, which in Odlanor's case has been mainly PokerStars and Full Tilt. These screenshots are immediately relayed to the hacker/online-poker cheat's computer, revealing the victims' hands and player IDs.

Because both Full Tilt and PokerStars allow online players to search for other players through their IDs, the hacker-cheats can easily locate the tables their intended victims are playing on.

The bottom line of this successful cheat implementaiton is that the victim will be destroyed rapidly.

So what's being done to combat the online-poker cheating malware?

According to Robert Lipovsky, a highly respected malware researcher at Eset, an anti-virus online security company, the Eastern European block has been hit hardest by the online poker hackers, although he stresses that anyone anywhere can become a victim to this huge online poker fraud.

The best defense for poker players online is to be vigilant and note and report any suspicious activity by their poker-playing opponents, especially when it seems as though their decisions are right such a high percentage of the time that they might be looking at your hole cards.

As with the vast majority of highly effective online poker cheat scams, this particular scam will be defeated to some degree by the online poker-playing community as a whole, who against well armed and sophisticated cheating must take the attitude "one for all and all for one."