*sigh* hacked, where do I go from here?

[fire_fly]

I'll try to keep this short.

Had $6,300 on Eurolinx when they switched networks (around the 15th of January.) After the Neteller debacle I knew it was going to be a while before new withdraw options would pop up, so I just left my money in there (wasn't playing.)

Log in around Feb. 10th, no money in the account. I talk to support, they said "You lost it." I said I haven't played a single hand in almost a month.

She gives me ip addresses of where my account was played. Someone logged in from Hayward (pretty close to me) the day before the money was lost (wasn't me, wasn't anyone I know) and then someone logged in from East Coast of Canada and lost all my money.

Here is a letter I got today from the Eurolinx CEO



"We have investigated this incident thoroughly, we do not doubt whatsoever that it is a person other than you who has been in canada playing on your account. We have done extensive analysis of the gameplay on the actual dates and found that there was no "chipdumping" taking place. This is unfortunate in that the funds are not recoverable.

We do not store or have access to our customers passwords. They are encrypted and hidden. We know with 100% certainty that our databases have not been compromised. As i mentioned to you earlier, it is a puzzling case. In most instances these cases can be tracked back to a hijacked mail account, where the password has been changed.

The culprit has gotten a hold of your password from your end!

The next step for you will have to be filing a complaint with your local police department, i also highly reccommend contacting the Canadian authorities, as well as the ISP. In most cases the Isp will require a warrant to make available the people behind an IP. With the kind of money involved here it should not be a problem.

We are available to answer any queries from law enforcement officials.

This is unfortunately all we can do from our end!

Best Regards

Jo Remme
CEO
Eurolinx LTD"


Serious posts only please, what do you guys think of going to the authorities? Has anyone ever heard of someone successfully doing this? The money isn't a fortune but was almost half my bankroll right now.

And I know you guys would love to throw a bunch of insults in, but please don't do it right now, I'm feeling really [censored] about all this. Thanks for the help guys.

[fire_fly]

By the way, I already requested hh's, already changed my password everywhere, already froze all my other poker accounts until I find out how this happened.

[Palomino]

That sucks.

Is it just me or does it seem like there is A LOT more hacking going on. There have been a lot of posts at other forums talking about this.

Good luck with things. I'm not sure I'd go to the police...I doubt they'd be able to help much, but who knows?

[daryn]

do you have any idea how it happened? download any programs lately? anyone use your computer?

[TomR]

If you haven't ruled out a trojan/keylogger/rootkit/etc then you should know that every key stroke on that computer may be shared with "bad people".

If you can, you should shut that computer down as soon as possible until you decide what to do with it. Someone knowledgeable of computers may be able to identify the method that the hacker used, if there was one.

[fire_fly]

[ QUOTE ]
If you haven't ruled out a trojan/keylogger/rootkit/etc then you should know that every key stroke on that computer may be shared with "bad people".


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I have dl'ed some stuff recently, but I also run Adaware regularly, have macaffee firewall and antivirus. Is this not enough?

After this [censored] happened I also got Spybot S&D. Should all this stuff have caught a keylogger? I'm pretty sure that's how they got my password.

On a related note, I've heard of a good program that generates and maintains hard to guess random passwords. Link?

[LeapFrog]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you haven't ruled out a trojan/keylogger/rootkit/etc then you should know that every key stroke on that computer may be shared with "bad people".


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I have dl'ed some stuff recently, but I also run Adaware regularly, have macaffee firewall and antivirus. Is this not enough?

After this [censored] happened I also got Spybot S&D. Should all this stuff have caught a keylogger? I'm pretty sure that's how they got my password.

On a related note, I've heard of a good program that generates and maintains hard to guess random passwords. Link?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well Spybot and Adaware are certainly good products but I'm a serious nit about security. If my computer was compromised I would NEVER 'trust' it until the HD was reformatted.

My advice: use a known safe computer to change all your info again. If you are thinking about going to the police, do not use the hard drive of your computer again as if they decide to pursue this they will need it for an investigation.

If you do not go to the police/when you get HD back from them I recommend a reformat, its really the only way to be sure.

Some tips for staying safe:

use a firewall: ZoneAlarm for example.

virus/spyware scans weekly or so: (free examples) Spybot/Adaware/TrendMicro

active protection: Windows Defender/Snoopfree Privacy Shield

Also: RootkitRevealer and Hijackthis are pretty good programs. Hijackthis requires a bit of technical understanding (to use properly -- please be careful making any changes)

For password generation/storage I like KeePass.

edited to add: use a hardware firewall too, (router)

[Tom Ames]

[ QUOTE ]
On a related note, I've heard of a good program that generates and maintains hard to guess random passwords. Link?

[/ QUOTE ]

KeePass

Good luck with your troubles.

[I_C_ALL]

Adaware and spybot rarely if ever find the real culprit. If I have odd [censored] on adaware or spybot then I know I have something. Once a week I'll start in safe mode (keep pressing F8 on startup) with networking and run two online scanners. The links are below. You may also want to browse the forum I'm linking below. One sticky says "How to Protect yourself from malware" and the other says "READ & RUN ME FIRST. Malware Removal Guide" Most if not all the programs in there are free. I have never found a virus or other [censored] that I couldn't remove following their advice in those two threads. Before I started playing poker, I used to download stupid [censored] intentionally. Always cleaned well. Once I had to run in Windows recovery mode and run a program to check for text in a file. The file I couldn't access was the virus. This file was invisible to the windows operating system. That was the toughest thing I ever ran into. The site below helped me to remove it.

Also +1 on the Zone Alarm. You can leave it on the higher settings and see virtually every program communication coming in or out of your computer.

BTW, IN MY OPINION, IF YOU FOLLOW THE STEPS <u>EXACTLY</u> IN "MALWARE REMOVAL GUIDE", YOU SHOULD HAVE A CLEAN COMPUTER AFTERWARDS. I would still install and run ZoneAlarm just in case. The free version of course [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Good luck

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35

http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html

http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan?

[BigF]

[ QUOTE ]

Yes, I have dl'ed some stuff recently, but I also run Adaware regularly, have macaffee firewall and antivirus. Is this not enough?


[/ QUOTE ]

Are you sure your firewall is turned on and blocking outgoing traffic? If so when the keylogger "phones home" the firewall should catch it and prompt you.