Security Expert F-Secure Warns About Program Targeting Poker Players

A Trojan horse that collects usernames and passwords for several poker sites and was distributed through a downloadable rake calculator has been discovered. The program was hidden in a rake calculator program (RBCalc.exe) that was offered through CheckRaised.com, a poker forum site that also offers online poker tools.

When people downloaded the RBCalc.exe application onto their computers, they also downloaded a Trojan horse that allows the programmer of the program to steal login information from unsuspecting users.

The program is capable of collecting login information from more than 10 sites, including PokerStars.com, Ultimatebet.com, AbsolutePoker.com, PartyPoker.com, FullTiltPoker.com, EmpirePoker.com, and Eurobetpoker.com.

F-Secure, a company that specializes in online security, discovered the malevolent application and released a report on it yesterday (May 16). When CheckRaised.com was told about the problem, it pulled the offending software from its site and issued a statement:

"In December 2005 we contracted a programmer to create a rake calculator for us. The rake calculator (known as RBCalc, RBCalc.exe) was an executable file that a player would run on his machine to calculate rake from hands he previously played (stored in hand history files or a poker tracker database).

"It has recently come to our attention that early versions of this program that we received contained a virus that installs itself every time the user runs RBCalc.

"The virus goes undetected by Norton AntiVirus and Microsoft Defender, even to this day. This is why we never noticed it until a third party contacted us about the malicious software."

For more information about the Trojan horse, visit www.f-secure.com/v-descs/small_la.shtml. CheckRaised.com says it has contacted security sites CERT, Symantec, McAfee and TrendMicro about the virus.

It also recommends to anyone who downloaded the rake calculator to change their poker usernames and passwords.

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