The time period “superuser” got here into the lexicon in the course of the dishonest scandal surrounding poker websites UltimateBet and Absolute Poker in 2005-07, referring to an internet poker account that would see different participant’s playing cards. Some of that controversy returned on Friday after GGPoker admitted {that a} participant below the identify “Moneytaker69” had been banned from the location for the same scheme.
After being alerted by members of the poker group, GG mentioned the corporate acknowledged uncommon sport patterns and “abnormal game client packets” involving the participant. Additionally, $29,795 in unfair winnings was confiscated, with match winnings to be decided.
“Our technical security team investigated the issue, identified a client-side vulnerability, and fixed what caused these unusual circumstances,” GG famous in an announcement.
Details On The Security Breach
GG detailed a number of the points associated to the safety concern. Under sure circumstances associated to the ‘“Thumbs Up/Down Table Reaction” feature, ‘Moneytaker69’ may customise his personal sport shopper.
This concerned a decompilation of the Windows sport shopper, interception of community site visitors, and alterations to sport packets. GG emphasised that the problem solely affected the Windows shopper and that the participant was by no means in a position to entry servers, server information, or different gamers’ gap playing cards. However, the person was in a position to achieve some benefits.
“Through this customized game client, he was able to deduce all-in equity by exploiting a client-side data leak vector,” GG famous. “Our engineers detected this vulnerability and issued an emergency update on December 16th to disable the Thumbs up/down table reactions.”
“However, the user was already in possession of the customized game client, which he blocked from receiving further updates, and was able to continue to accumulate the data leak during the flop and turn. Through this accumulated data, he could guess his win probability with reasonable assurance.”
The firm has since issued safety patches to forestall related leaks and added methods to detect and forestall gamers from customizing the sport shopper to their profit.
“We sincerely apologize for the incident, which has caused many poker players to worry about the game’s integrity and shaken their trust in GGPoker to provide the best poker experience,” GG famous within the assertion. “We take this incident very seriously and continue to work hard not to disappoint poker players. Additionally, we are actively recruiting to double the size of our technical security team and are enlisting help from renowned security professionals to ensure that online poker is safer than ever.”
Players React
The superuser discovery got here on the two+2 Forums on Thursday. A poster alleged suspicious habits from ‘Moneytaker69,’ utilizing an irregular win fee, and erratic hand histories to assist the declare.
Some gamers had been happy that GG provided such an intensive rationalization whereas others had been essential that it took the corporate so lengthy to repair the safety concern. Others questioned whether or not different customers had been in a position to exploit the flaw.
“Are you performing a thorough investigation to find other cheaters who used this exploit?” one Twitter person responded. “’Moneytaker69’ was one of many. It’s almost a certainty he would have shared it with a team. It’s a bad look to simply pretend the one player the public caught is the only cheater.”
This is the most recent transfer by GG to ban gamers. In 2020, GG banned some gamers accused of “bum hunting” and different phrases of service violations.
