Home / Poker News September 2015 / Full Tilt, PokerStars Hit by Malware
Full Tilt, PokerStars Hit by Malware
Posted by: Jo Martin - Sat, 2015-09-19 00:01
The name of the new nemesis of online poker is "Odlanor" and apparently the malware is already causing a lot of concern at Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. The reason is a simple yet rather terrifying one: according to security expert ESET, the program is able to allow users to see the hole-cards of other players at the two industry-leading
online poker rooms.
According to ESETs Urban Schrott, Odlanor is the sort of malware that seldom comes along and that's special considering how it targets online poker. The trojan, called Win32/Spy.Odlanor, has first been detected in April 2015. PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have been made aware of the issue and they have indeed discovered that some of their players had had their computers infected with Odlanor. Reviews of the hand-histories associated with the said computers showed no specific funds lost due to the problem though.
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The recommendation from ESET for poker players is to practice proper computer security, which essentially means an up-to-date antivirus measure, updated operating system and the downloading of software from trusted sources only.
How exactly does Odlanor work though? According to ESET, it's a fairly simple piece of software, which allows those who operate it to receive screenshots of the poker action as it unfolds on the infected machines. Those who use torrents or have a habit of downloading otherwise useful applications from unverified sources, are especially exposed to Odlanor. Interestingly, there are a number of poker-related programs mentioned by ESET as potential carriers of the trojan: Poker Calculator Pro is one of them, Tournament Shark is another.
What makes Odlanor especially dangerous is the fact that its screenshots include both hole cards as well as player ID.
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