PokerTableRatings Exposes Major Security Flaw at CEREUS

Popular hand tracking site PokerTableRatings.com once again shocked the poker industry.  Site representatives uncovered a critical flaw in the CEREUS Network poker software that affected both UB.com and Absolute Poker.  The flaw allowed a would-be attacker to expose the hole cards of a player on the same network.

The flaw starts when you log into a poker client, which is a behind-the-scenes connection between your computer and the servers owned by the network.  This connection is used to transmit all data between the two systems, including your username, password, betting actions, and hole cards.  Almost all secure network connections, within the poker industry or not, use OpenSSL, which is regarded as the best system for encrypting network transmissions.

The CEREUS Network did not use SSL to encrypt its communications and instead used XOR.  What a hacker could do, in theory, is connect to your network and see your hole cards.  If you connect in a public place or have your home network unsecured, then you have been and are still at risk.  Once that hacker is logged in, they can expose this vulnerability and use it to their advantage.

The outcry from the poker community has been decisively negative toward the CEREUS Network, fueled by its checkered past.  PokerTableRatings.com urged players to not play on the network sites until the flaw is taken care of.  Tokwiro Enterprises, which owns and operates UB.com and Absolute Poker, has been releasing statements to the effect that they are embarrassed by this development and are working around-the-clock to fix the issue.

To their credit, CEREUS officials have been allowing PokerTableRatings.com to audit their updates and inform the public of developments.  On May 14th, the site released a statement that the update appears to use OpenSSL only for player actions such as hole cards and bets.  However, the testing team was already able to hijack a poker account using the exact same methods as before

PokerTableRatings.com later updated the same story and said that they re-ran all of the tests and can conclusively confirm that they are still able to hijack logins by sniffing the network, which is in theory the exact same security hole as before.  Therefore, logins and passwords are still unsecured on the network; however, PokerTableRatings.com did confirm that it is now impossible to obtain hole card data using the previous exploit.

To many, CEREUS’ most recent update does nothing to quell the fears that many now have of playing on the network.  It is still not 100% secure over an unsecured network connection.  For those living in public hotspots or college dorms where internet connections are shared, they remain at risk at this moment in time.

The fallout speaks volumes to the level of trust a poker site must have to maintain its traffic.  Before the security vulnerability was exposed, CEREUS sat in a firm sixth place in worldwide traffic rankings for poker rooms according to PokerScout.com.  Since that time, the network has dropped to ninth, with a continued downward trend on the horizon.

PokerSoftware.com agrees with PokerTableRatings.com and suggests that if players want to play on the CEREUS Network at all, they must only do so from a trusted and secured network.  Otherwise, it would be in the best interest of our readers to wait until auditors are completely satisfied that all network security issues have been fixed.  Alternately, players can plug their computers directly into their modems.

Visit PokerTableRatings.com for more details.