2+2 poker forum hacked; site still down next day

Posted by Steve Ruddock on Apr 27, 2012 Posted in Poker News | No Comments »

During one of the most important poker-related discussions of the past year (the potential sale of Full Tilt poker to PokerStars) the go-to place for the latest news and updates has been hit by a cyber attack. On Thursday the 2+2 poker forum was inaccessible to members after a hacker(s) apparently compromised the site’s security, gaining access to members’ accounts, including E-Mail addresses and passwords.

Visitors to the site were greeted by the following message on Thursday [on Friday morning the site simply would not open]:

04/26/2012 2:13pm ET: Forums closed for maintenance

On April 26th at approximately 11:20 AM pacific time, the Two Plus Two Forums were closed as a result of a hacker who has displayed the ability to access e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords. He also indicated the ability to decrypt passwords.

While it is unclear the extent of data to which he gained access, e-mail addresses and passwords on the Two Plus Two forums should be considered compromised. If you have used your 2+2 password on any other site, you are advised to change it.

For your security we are closing the forums until the breach is patched.

We hope to be back up as soon as possible.

This same message was systematically sent out to 2+2 users via E-Mail throughout the day.

2+2 moderated NoahSD took to Twitter and his blog to try to further explain the situation, as well as to provide 2+2 users with some of steps they should be implementing to make sure the information stolen by the hacker(s) is not used against them.

In a 2-part Tweet NoahSD wrote:

“To clarify, you should change your password on all sites that use the same password as 2p2 EXCEPT for 2p2 itself. AFAIK, the vulnerability still exists, and the forum is down, so changing your password on 2p2 right now is pointless.”

Later in a lengthier post at his blog titled: 2p2 Hacked: Do This Stuff Immediately, he posted several steps players can take to secure their information and other online accounts.

At the poker forum PokerFraudAlert.com, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles added his own thoughts on the hacking and how players can protect themselves. Todd brought up that it might be a good idea to add a separate E-Mail account, used only for important financial transactions, to your security measures –Interestingly, Todd and Noah got into a little back-and-forth about online security in the thread which also makes for good reading, even to a non-techno-geek like myself!

It’s still unclear what has transpired and precisely what information (or how much) may have been gained by the hacker(s): PokerNewsBoy will definitely keep you posted as more information becomes available.

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