High-Stakes players Hacked - Doug Polk Explains How
6 years ago26 May
Vanessa Rousso, it transpires, was not the only well-known poker player to have her account hacked this past week â her âswatting ordealâ being joined by the likes of Vanessa Selbst, Dan Smith and others who all had their security compromised, leading Doug Polk to make a new vlog entitled âPoker Pros Are Being HACKED! Here's How They Did It...â
First up was Rousso, whose Twitter got everyoneâs attention when she claimed she needed emergency help but the police werenât responding. After several hours of alarmed friends and fans trying to find out what was wrong, it transpires that she had been swatted â a prank where emergency services (and often SWAT teams) are called out, often to celebrities.
Next up was high-stakes pro Dan Smith, whose sardonic tweet referred to his recent bad showingsâŚ
Then the worldâs best woman player, Vanessa Selbst, shared a host of tweets, starting withâŚ
⌠further tweets showing her increasing frustration at trying to resolve the potentially very-damaging situationâŚ
To add to the list, Cate Hall was also a victim of some dastardly hackers, relying on fellow pro Liv Boeree to spread news of her online problemsâŚ
"I can also say I know other people who have been getting hacked too, but just have not come forward publicly," Polk said in his latest vlog covering the spate of hacking incidents hitting the poker community.
âThis video is going to be about what we know happened, how it happened and then Iâm going to give you guys a run-down on how to keep yourself secure.â
The one person Polk spoke to personally about the incidents was Vanessa Selbst, who explained that the hackers go via your mobile phone provider and persuade them you need a PIN change â after which, anything backed up by SMS is vulnerable â the hackers having access to the SMS codes sent out.
Itâs apparently incredibly easy to do and much harder to fix as Selbstâs tweets seem to indicate.
âHereâs the thing you all need to come to terms with, especially in the high-stakes community â your phone is not safe!â says Polk, explaining how the carriers will view customer convenience ahead of security issues in many cases.
Polk is very serious about this issue, he himself the victim of scammers of a slightly different sort in his illustrious career.
The fixes for these latest hacks, he explains, are varied â and proceeds to list the ways to ensue your accounts are kept as safe as possible. Take notes â it could save you a lot of hassle and even money by following them!
Polkâs top tips are:
- Do your best to secure your phone. Add a PIN only changeable in person with photo ID.
- Make a âpretendâ call to see if your details are safe from a real hackerâs attempt.
- Use accounts with 2FA (two-factor authentication) as a matter of priority and choice.
- Do not use the application âauthyâ or similar products which link back to your phone. Use âGoogle Authenticatorâ instead, despite its annoying features.
- Get yourself âKeyPassâ, a password management program, and make long difficult passwords for very important accounts.
To finish with, crypto-currency, Polk explains, is âa hackerâs dreamâ â and you need to take special care of these accounts, as anything going missing is unrecoverable. So, there you have it â bad things happen so do your best to make life as difficult as possible for the would-be thieves!
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