Ultimate Bet Scandal 2

May 6th, 2010

Cereus Poker Network security flaw

Pokertableratings.com demonstrates how easy it is to see opponents hole cards or even hijack users accounts. Apparently Cereus is not using SSL or a similar encryption algorithm. Members of the online community Twoplustwo.com are having a field day right now about UB Scandal 2.

SenatorKevin posts:
They were probably curious more than anything. I analyzed Full Tilt’s network traffic a few years ago for such a vulnerability and was pleased to see they had fully encrypted traffic which made me feel more comfortable playing there. I never looked at UB, cause I didn’t play there at the time.

phils08 posts
The problem is that the Cereus Poker network does not use SSL to encrypt their communications; they use a custom form of encryption which is XOR-based. This form of encryption is known to be extremely weak, and in fact their particular implementation makes it particularly simple to decrypt network data due to an easily discoverable key.

In fact, the encryption that the Cereus Network employs isn’t so much encryption as it is encoding. To see how simple it is to decode this data, simply open up your windows calculator and set it on scientific mode. All that is really necessary to decode the data stream is the XOR button .

The requirement for this vulnerability to be exploited is network access. This means that if you are playing on an open wireless network, a cracked wireless network (something which is increasingly simple to do), or on a physical network which has been compromised – an attacker could dump the network traffic and exploit this vulnerability maliciously.

Surely the Cereus Network’s board is meeting right now on how to address this issue. Pokertableratings is again showings it’s value by instigating these matters. I will post as more information comes to light.