I only play very small stakes Holdem on Pokerstars. I just received this email this week about someone hacking into my account. Everyone says that only the large money accounts are hacked but it appears that is not the case, so watchout.


Hello Brian,

Greetings from PokerStars.


Thank you so much for replying back to our email.

I am afraid I must confirm our records show your account was accessed from
Netherland on 1/16/2009 at 5:50:52 AM . We just wanted to confirm if, you
were the person who accessed the account on that date.

At the moment it is pretty hard to determinate how the hacker had access
to your information. For these type of cases most likely is through a key
logger. Usually these types of viruses are sent via an attachment (photo,
file, etc) or you used a computer which was previously infected.
Fortunately, we have been able to catch it on time.

In order to reinstate please confirm your computers are free of threats
and that you have changed your email password (we also recommend you to
change any other private information).

As soon as we receive a clear photocopy of a government issued photo ID
(front and back), the account could be reinstated. This is the only way we
have to verify you are the account holder and not someone else that could
have got in hold of your information.


Please scan the requested documentation and send to
security@pokerstars.com or fax to:
PokerStars
Attn: Security Department
Fax: 1-800-631-9050 - Toll free for US & Canada
+506-2295-6860 - All other countries

** Write your username on all the pages if sending by fax.


I will be looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for your
understanding and for your cooperation.



Best Regards,

Roberta C
PokerStars Security




- Hide quoted text -
----- Original Message -----

Sent: 2009/02/07 04:42:51
To: security@pokerstars.com
Subject: Re: Account frozen for investigation

>Thank you for your letter. I dont play much so i was suprised when i saw
>this. I do not know a ThirstyCa318 or MainMan Andy. I am just a small
>limit player and just do so for fun. As far as my spyware, i just noticed
>that it is out of date. I dont play big games but I hope no one has been
>taking advantage of me or my account. I want to get my account back
>active. .
>
>On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 1:58 PM, <security@pokerstars.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello Brian,
>>
>> Greetings from PokerStars.
>>
>> This email is to inform you, your account has been momentarily frozen
due
>> to security reasons. Wee are just trying to confirm everything is okay
>> with it.
>>
>> As part of the investigation, I need to ask you if, by any chance you
>> belong or have received assistance (received a file or attachment) from
a
>> digital forum where people help each other with technical/computer
>> problems? If so, please let me know the names or usernames of the
persons
>> you know from this site.
>>
>> Also for our records we would appreciate if, you let us know if, you
know
>> or have received assistances from: ThirstyCa318 or MainMan Andy.
>> Before, I let you go, I need to ask you for confirmation of the
following
>> things:
>>
>> a) Please run the Antivirus in your computer and search for any type of
>> virus or spyware. We have the suspicious your computer(s) can be
infected
>> by a key logger. That is why need to know your computer is clear from
>> threats.
>>
>> b) Please change your email password information and any other password
>> from any online company that you use, in which you can access valuable
>> private information, your entire personal information could be
compromised.
>>
>> c) Please send us a clear photocopy of a government issued photo ID
(front
>> and back).
>>
>> Please scan the requested documentation and send to
>> security@pokerstars.com or fax to:
>> PokerStars
>> Attn: Security Department
>> Fax: 1-800-631-9050 - Toll free for US & Canada
>> +506-2295-6860 - All other countries
>>
>> ** Write your username on all the pages if sending by fax.
>>
>> I will be looking forward to hearing from you soon.
>>
>>
>> Best Regards,
>>
>> Roberta C
>> PokerStars Security
>>

is determinate a word? Sounds fishy

Odds FTP would freeze an account if it was randomly logged into from the Netherlands at 6am? I'll go with 0%.

edit out your phonenumber quick

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Oops...almost left it in there. I dont play much on my account nor did I have a large sum of money, because i have had concerns about security. However, if they can hit me, they can hit anyone. I always run a virus scan every day to try to eliminate something like this happening but it didnt seem to work.

this is why pokerstars is the #1!

i am realy impressed. 5*

its a good think PS spends all that time protecting his 500 FPP's

the letter is horribley written....i would call them to make sure....unless you wanna be the star of the next creidt report commercail.

There was a thread just like this the other day where a Stars employee confirmed it was legit. Would searching to see if a topic has been covered before starting a thread kill anyone?

I don't know the OP's PokerStars User ID, so I can't confirm that this email is legitimate, but we have certainly sent emails similar to this out.

If you ever have a doubt about the legitimacy of an email claiming to come from PokerStars, please forward it to support@pokerstars.com.

de·ter·mi·nate (d-tûrm-nt)
adj.
1. Precisely limited or defined; definite: a determinate number; a determinate distance.
2. Conclusively settled; final.
3. Firm in purpose; resolute.

Does Stars lock accounts automatically when a login from a "foreign" IP
is happening? If not, can I send an email telling them to only accept
logins from my country?

i would like to know this as well

+2

OP,

It looks like you use gmail. Make sure that you have your settings to always login using an https secure site. This is not the default. You can change this under your settings. There are a lot of poker accounts that seem to get hacked because gmail accounts get hacked

Automatically? I would suggest not. My father lives in a different country from me, and I have used my Stars account from his place when I've been visiting. I have never received an email about this.

Hello,

We're not able to disclose the specific things that get an account automatically locked.
No, we do not offer that service. The overwhelming majority of hackers (95%+) are from the same country and such a feature would be of very limited assistance. On top of this, it is trivially easy for a hacker to route his internet traffic so that it would appear to be coming from the same country.

Instead, our focus is on increasing the security of your account through other measures which will be strong against even people in the same country as you.

Our forthcoming Account Security Enhancements comprise two key areas that are obvious to users (and a whole series of back-end improvements that are not). This will include PokerStars introducing a RSA Security Token, which you can read more about generally at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_token

The RSA Security Token will help to combat key loggers by requiring someone logging into the account to have the RSA Security Token physically with them, upgrading account security to a 'two factor authentication' - something you know (your password) and something you have (your token). This will be a big step forward.

In addition, we've enhanced what we formerly called our 'Secure ID' and reformed it to be a new PokerStars PIN - this will be similar to some of the banks that use a keypad that you need to click on the screen. This won't be as strong as the RSA Security Token, but will be an alternative option for those people that desire something a little simpler/cheaper.

As always, if you have an interest in this stuff, or specific queries, please email us at support@pokerstars.com

Sincerely,

Michael J
PokerStars Game Security Team

I got this same email and made a thread about it last week. I also know of two other people on stars that got a simular email. So now there is a minimum of four people that were affected, I'm sure its much higher then that. I'd really like to know how this hacker got in. Did we all download the same file or something?


My thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...gation-405107/

can we get a date on when we can expect the RSA tokens to be available to all players?

We don't have a certain date yet.

We hope that it'll be within the next few weeks. I'm reluctant to give anything more specific than that because there are a million things that could change and we don't want to create excessively high expectations.

Thank you to the response to my thread. I want to make one thing clear. Pokerstars has been very helpful during this situation. I dont want anyone to think I am bashing PS. I think it demonstrates the uphill battle PS faces every day to protect all of our accounts.

I am a little freaked out about it though. I want to deposit a good bankroll for me to play on but after this...I feel uncomfortable doing so. It kinda sucks cuz I have a casino BR(i live an hour away from the casinos in tunica ms) and I really wanted to deposit it in PS because it would save me on gas and other expenses I use for the casinos, which means more profit for me lol.

Ty to the poster about his solution to gmail. I did not know that.

I love this forum and read from it daily. I have learned alot from you guys/gals and hope to continue building friendships here.

To the PS mod who is on this forum:

Ty for your posts...I would like to ask you how safe it is to deposit money in my account now, since someone seemed to gain access to my account?

"Duh Terminator" imo

When I was in Mexico on vacation, in October 2008, I logged onto PokerStars and played a tournament. They didn't lock my account.

I play all the time from the UK when on vacation with no problems. I have never told them I was traveling. I'm a us player.