Cake Poker: Security restored

08/08/2010

The encryption issue at the Cake Poker network which was picked up by independent poker information website Poker Table Ratings.com (see prevous InfoPowa report) has been successfully addressed.

PTR confirmed this week that the problems at Cake Poker had been solved by adding SSL encryption to the old XOR client and new beta software.

The site's confirmation followed earlier assurances from Cake's card room manager, Lee Jones, that the technical team at Cake had successfully added an SSL layer to both the regular client and the new Client 2 beta version.

PTR originally exposed the flaw, claiming that it was possible to launch the MS Windows calculator, switch it to Scientific mode, and start decoding the Cake Poker Network?s XOR. This meant that players on unsecured wireless networks were at risk of having their hole cards and account information compromised.

Cake's first solution, implemented on August 4th, was less than successful, according to PTR, but the technical staff soon sorted out the flaws to report that all Cake Poker Network skins and the network?s flagship site had SSL encryption.

PTR then carried out further tests and reported that the previous vulnerabilities had been satisfactorily addressed.

PTR gave players tips on how to reassure themselves that their favourite Cake skins had the added protection through C Drive>Program Files>name of the skin in question>ssleay32dll. The advice was that if the dll file was absent, then the skin was not yet fully protected, but if it was present, the skin had been fitted with the added security.

The security scare appeared to have some impact on business, with the independent poker stats website Pokerscout.com reporting a 15 percent dip in peak cash game action over the period when the crisis surfaced.