There has been another report of a vulnerability in the cereus network that further blackens the online poker reputation of two of the larger poker sites on the Internet. The poker tracking database website Poker Table Ratings outlined a new security risk that affects the Cereus network, which powers previous online poker bad-boys Absolute Poker and UB, formerly known as Ultimate Bet. Despite assuring everyone that the sites were secure this allegation will rock the confidence of the players at these sites and may see an exodus of players looking for a new online poker home.

A player on the site posted a video of the security flaw on YouTube. For those of you who missed this video follow this link to view it. The vulnerability apparently relates to either unsecured wireless networks, cracked wireless networks or hard wired connections to the Internet where your password is known. The data packets sent to through the networked are intercepted by the hacker and decoded. After decoding a special program identifies the cards and they are visible to the player on the poker table unbeknownst to the rest of the table. The speed of the program allows an almost instant revealing of the hole cards. Knowledge of your hole cards would see opponents make perfect decisions on your hands and you would be unable to avoid losing to the cheaters.

The Cereus network is said to have been informed of this encryption issue and are seeking to resolve this as soon as possible. The vulnerability is not isolated to the online poker hole cards however. A cyber attacker could use this method to obtain your personal information via obtaining your password and they could hack into your account and lose all of your bankroll deliberately. This has happened before when an AOL mail vulnerability caused many players, including online superstar Pearljammer to suffer a loss of bankroll in this way. Due to the difficulty of catching the perpetrators due to the anonymity of the Internet this type of crime puts players particularly at risk and any vulnerability which accentuates these risks mark a serious online poker security risk.

Whilst it is recommended that players do not play on unsecured wireless networks because data packets sent from any website can be intercepted and maliciously decoded, there must also now be a serious consideration made whether playing at this network is sensible. The XOR-based encoding used by Cereus is notoriously vulnerable to hackers yet this network preferred this method to the more secure SSL encryptions. It is clear from watching the video that while most people would not have the knowledge to get as far as decoding hands the mere fact it can be done is a fatal flaw for the cereus network software. There is no suggestion at the moment that this security flaw was known by Cereus.

Players concerned about their online poker security should forward any queries to their poker room but rest assured that with the exception of these two poker rooms and their network there have been few instances where vulnerability has been exposed. It is clear that people like the makers of the video are constantly testing the security of different poker sites looking for exploitable flaws and the fact no such vulnerability has been reported on a site like bwin.com where I play a lot of my poker speaks volumes for their ability to securely encrypt their poker software.

Security for players is paramount; therefore my recommendation for downloading the poker client offered by bwin.com might be the solution you are looking for if you are currently uncertain about where to play poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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