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PTR Uncovers Security Flaws at Cake Poker Network, Cake Responds

PokerTableRatings claims to have found security issues at yet another major room – this time it’s the Cake Network.

UPDATE 6/27: Cake Poker has responded to the PTR report. Click to read, or scroll to end of article

You may recall that a few months ago, PTR uncovered a serious security flaw at the CEREUS Network. The short of it was that a weak encryption scheme left players open and vulnerable to others gaining access to their account, the content of their hole cards and more.

After a false start or two, and not without a little controversey, CEREUS fixed the issue. You can read more about that here.

It appears that the Cake Network finds itself in a similar position now, with PTR reporting that Cake’s security flaw is “almost the same” as the CEREUS flaw. The differences, as suggested by PTR, are that Cake intentionally misled players about the level of security present at the room and in fact made outright deceptive claims regarding the encryption employed at the room.

Read the full PTR article here.

Below, view the proof of the flaw in a video presented by PTR:

If the allegations raised by PTR are true, it’s incredibly damning, especially in the wake of the scandal at CEREUS.

The vulnerability is believed to impact all skins on the Cake Network.

Cake Poker Response:

Cake Poker released the following response via email to PTP:

Here’s a status update on the security vulnerability in the Cake Poker software which was reported yesterday. Our development team replicated the described scenario and confirmed that a vulnerability exists which can be addressed to strengthen the security of the Cake Poker software. We take this very seriously and have mobilized a team of senior engineers to address the problem. In short, we are adding an SSL layer to secure all communication between our servers and the client software. We’ve got everybody who can possibly help on this and will get the development and testing jobs completed as soon as humanly possible.

In the meantime, if you wish to play on Cake Poker (or the Cake Network), we encourage you to follow good security practices:

* Make sure that your computer is secure. Run anti-virus and spyware detection software, don’t share your computer’s password with anybody else, etc.
* In terms of network security, the most secure thing you can do is play on a wired network. Plugging your computer into a router or modem with an Ethernet cable is the best defense against your packets being sniffed.
* If you are on a wireless home, dorm, or other network that is WPA2 protected, that’s your next most secure solution.
* We encourage you not to play on a wireless network which is not password protected. For instance, if the coffee shop around the corner just plugged a wireless router into their cable connection and announced “Free WiFi”, you shouldn’t be playing on the Cake Network there. It’s worth noting, in fact, that you shouldn’t be doing anything of financial importance over an unprotected wireless network (poker, banking, etc).

Ultimately, it comes down to a question of degree. No system is 100% secure and each person must weigh the relative convenience of access (e.g. free WiFi at a coffee shop) against the potential security risks.

For our part, we are totally committed to closing this hole in our server-client communication security and it will be our top priority until it’s done. We will update you as soon as there is more to say.

Thank you, as always, for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

We’ll continue to update as events warrant.

Read the full PTR article here.

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