Pokerstars account hijacked

Hi Mark,

All I can say at this stage is to wait for their security team to get back to you on this issue.

I'm sure you appreciate that they are the largest Poker Room online at the moment and that it's also the weekend.

I truly hope you can get this sorted.

Keep us informed.

Best wishes,
Gary

Gary
Security are looking into it now.
Heres what I got
I have blanked the user names of the bastards in on this.

1. How many computers do you use to play on PokerStars?
>2. What is your relation to the following players on our site:
>
>xxxxxxx
XXXXXXX
>
>3. Do you have other family members or other people living with you
>that may have access to your computer?
>4. Do you normally leave the "remember password" feature on?
>5. Have you ever provided your password to any other person?
>6. Have you scanned your computer(s) to confirm that you have no
>viruses, keyloggers or spyware?
>7. Do you recognize having transferred $215.00 to player 'XXXXX'
>today?
>8. Have you been in Lithuania recently?
>
>Once we receive your response and ID, we may assist you further in this
>matter. Please understand that we have to make identity verifications
>occasionally to make sure that PokerStars remains a safe and secure
>environment for its players.
>
>Thank you for your understanding and cooperation

I have spoken to a wonderful woman at Pokerstars called Paola she works in the security dept. She informed me that my money is ok but I need to scan pc
etc (In process of doing it now!!) for virus and keyloggers.
The amount to be paid to the other guy is a bit suspect as he apparently is a victim too????The guy/gal also tried to remove the rest of my account through netteller.
I was also registered for bigger $11 $22 and Sunday storm all of which I played extremely tight I had VPIP stats of 0/0/0/0 200+ hands LOL
hopefully MONEY SAFE!!!

cheers
Mark

The guy they sent the money to was probably done to make it look like he was stealing your money or something? ♠_confused: Worlds Dumbest criminals ring a bell? ♦

Hopefully you'll get everything sorted out and get your money back Would suggest getting yourself a RSA Security Token if you have substantial amounts of money online, should really help to avoid such things happening in the future

Well people I am still on the sidelines.
The bastard who hacked my pc also got into my Betfair account and had a look around (IP login Brazil). Betfair will only pay monies back to cards or accounts that made the deposit in my case moneybookers. By the time they got to moneybookers I had changed the password. They still tried to get in so I had the account locked. Moneybookers wanted me to change account name and Betfair are now happy to use this.
But Pokerstars are not down as a rapid response outfit. They sent the following after I emailed them for the nth time.

Hello Mark,

Thank you for the follow-up regarding your account.

We can verify that your original emails has all been forwarded to the relevant security agent that has been handling your case.
Unfortunately, we cannot provide a time frame for a response, but please rest assured that you will be contacted as soon as your email reaches the front of the queue.

With that said, each and every case is assigned to a certain security agent and can therefore not be handled by someone else.
Either way, your continued patience is very much appreciated and your case should be sorted out very shortly.

If you should have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Regards,

OH bollocks what if the agent is ill or off on a world cruise then retires???
LOL in complete frustration and hysteria.

the ever so patient
Mark
PS to be continued(the patience and the awful story!!)

Sick waiting game, but with all the unexpected crap that PS has handled exceptionally well in the past I'm sure they have a good way of dealing with this.

Accounts being hacked is bound to come up occasionally, and they probably just have some things to do on their end.

GL getting a swift resolution. Also, if you have any tips on keeping info secure that yo've learned since this happened, it might be valuable to share!

You should change all your passwords on all poker clients. Are they by any chance similar to each other? Try to make them hard to hack using combination of letters and numbers.
Someone once tried to hack my full tilt account. When I logged in I saw a message that there were 5 unsuccessful attempts to log in from Canada Thankfully they couldn't hack it.

All passwords can be different they use a keylogger,I have quite difficult
passwords at least 8 chars long containing upper and lower case and numbers.
But it does not matter in this case how strong the password is if like a big
donkey I then type it into the system for them to see.
The only way round this is to use key fobs
I have one for online banking and one on its way for moneybookers (cost15Euro)
thats got to be +EV. Will try and get one for Stars to.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOYEAAAH
They have given me a PIN
Sorry for that little outburst but I'm back in my account.

Rules to play real money poker

1. DONT n NEVER play at Cybercafe or any other places except ur own PC

2. If u do not agree with above, scan for any keylogger, etc etc before use n delete ur browsing history.

3. Well dont tell anyone ur pasword or show anyone, unless ur wife.

4. Your email registered to poker account must be safe at all cost.

5. Dont show off to ur frens u have a lot of $$$ in ur account!

Dis-Obeying these simple rules n u deserve to be hacked!

thanks Justin for great tips. Also don't use cracked software, including pirate windows from torrents. Secure your wi-fi and try to avoid public wi-fi. use router if you don't have one. But from my experience most people got hacked because they use pirated software, games etc or browsed to some warez or xxx sites. also keep your windows and software you use updated.

I think the main thing that I have learnt is not to get complacent and to update
virus scanners etc.
I will always do a spyware check and close all browsers and ckeck the running proccesses in task manager before I login.
On Pokerstars I use the PIN security feature, which uses a virtual keypad that
changes the number positions each time you use it.
Since all of this crap happened one of my disk drives failed and my system crashed.
Did I panic?
Yes of course I did!!!
Since I got back on Stars I have really run bad I am starting to think the world
can see my hole cards or worse still they can see the turn and river before me!!

Be lucky
Mark

PS Anyone any idea how long paranoia lasts.
PPS What the F**** was that!!!!

My acc't got hacked last yr. Lost 275$. It's ongoing problem at Stars.

Use as mush of the security they offer.

Still don't trust P/Stars

Everything there is so bad, yet all the tracffic is there. WHY?

The math don't add up there, I've logged 800K hands there and the math is off
Lousy RNG, lousy customer support, lousy security.

Sorry to hear that you have probs with account.
They were really good with me but their feedback and comms could be better.
I have a security token now.
RNG? can of worms, we could debate this forever.

cheers be lucky

Mark

Hi Mark

Did your scan pick up any keyloggers or anything else? If so could you tell us what they were called?

And +1 to security tokens and #4 rule from Justin37 is IMO the most important rule for me! Might send the email provider an email asking if they offer security tokens too ♦

Hi Skraggy
I did not pick up anything on my scans apart from a bit of adware crap.
I have also installed Trusteer Rapport which is supposed to protect sites from keyloggers etc. I also use a mixture of physical keyboard and online keyboard strokes. I have Microsoft security essentials, AVG 2012 and SuperAntiSpyware.
The most secure option is without doubt the security tokens as the scammer can watch but learn nothing.

Thanks Mark - I'm going to look into the onscreen option(it's something I've never used before)

Skraggy
Sorry for confusion that may exist I did say online I meant onscreen.
Its available under Programs/accessories/ease of access. I read somewhere
that is not the same as the physical keyboard.While I do not believe it will protect against all keyloggers its not going to do any harm. The online keyboard that I have used in the past was at PokerStars and it was for a PIN. It would fire up and jumble the order of the numbers so no one could calculate your pin from where you clicked.
If your PStars account is protected by a token,you have to login to change the email account, so its by far the safest and most secure way.

Originally posted by Mark1790
Hi Skraggy
I did not pick up anything on my scans apart from a bit of adware crap.
I have also installed Trusteer Rapport which is supposed to protect sites from keyloggers etc. I also use a mixture of physical keyboard and online keyboard strokes. I have Microsoft security essentials, AVG 2012 and SuperAntiSpyware.
The most secure option is without doubt the security tokens as the scammer can watch but learn nothing.

This is a big nono you can't use both avg and security essentials. It will make your computer less protected due to both av conflicting with each other. Keep the one you like the most(I use mse). Consider picking up malwarebytes also it is what I use with superantispyware and it is also free scanner.