Online Poker Hit by New 'Superuser' Scandal as Malware Reportedly Exposes Players' Hole Cards

The allegations surfaced in late September from a cybersecurity researcher who posts as @wolfsec0x0. The claim: a covert remote-access agent was slipped onto players' Windows PCs through compromised poker software, letting whoever ran the server see the victim's screen live, hole cards included, and even take over the mouse and keyboard.

Jurojin Poker, a productivity tool for online players, has since issued a lengthy statement. It says only about 30 high-stakes players were targeted, that the attack was selective and carried out by hand by a known cheater rather than blasted out automatically, and that affected users were contacted privately by email. The same actor reportedly ran phishing sites that imitated poker rooms and popular poker tools. The researcher said GGPoker and ClubWPT Gold were not involved, and the company says it is working with him.

This is a different animal from the classic superuser scandals of the 2000s, where insiders abused server-side access to see opponents' cards. Here the weak point is the player's own computer. There is precedent: a Danish high-stakes pro was convicted years ago for installing malware on rivals' laptops to read their cards.