Preventing Hackers From Stealing Your Money

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In the wake of all of the chipdumping and episodes involving ‘tealninja’ and ‘playerlogin’, there have been numerous posts on 2+2 detailing how to secure your system and network, with many of them being completely inaccurate and possibly detrimental. While I have no sympathy for people who are hacked due to the fact that they leave tens of thousands of dollars on their online poker accounts without adequately securing their systems, the misinformation and fearmongering built up by people in the Zoo is has far surpassed my point of tolerance.

My background: I have worked for several dot-com companies and technical corporations as a network and systems administrator, network analyst, web programmer, quality assurance technician, and have liasoned with the U.S. government for assistance with certain departments concerning network security and cryptology. I have significant education in computer networking/programming, systems analysis, as well as game theory. I feel more than qualified to write a beginner-to-intermediate guide for implementing good network security for Internet poker players.

Disclaimer: This guide is meant to be an entry-level document to help in securing your network and computers that you access the Internet with, along with various other activities. None of the advice contained within guarantees that your system and network will be totally secure, and carries no guarantee, implied or otherwise. You assume all the risks of implementing such a strategy. So, with all of that out of the way, what do we need to do to secure our systems and our network to avoid hacking attempts that can potentially cost us thousands of dollars in time and real money, not to mention the very real possibility of identity theft, which is far worse than any amount of money you may have lost? Before we go into detail of securing your system, let me say that this guide will address people running Windows XP Home, Professional, or Corporate only. Though the recommendations will help older Windows users as well, no effort to clarify the steps will be taken.

Step One: Baseline Operations

“So high-speed Internet access makes me more vulnerable, since attackers are coming at me faster?” – Idiot AOL user on a commercial “Yes, exactly.” – Retard AOL system administrator on the same commercial

You’ve probably seen that commercial, and you probably believe in it. It’s not true. In fact, people who are on dial-up are probably MORE at risk than broadband Internet users, since most (if not all) dial-up users aren’t using a hardware firewall to protect them. This article will continue to address only users with broadband connections.

What You Will Need to Protect Yourself – Non-negotiable pieces of the puzzle

-A good router (I recommend the Linksys WRT54GS, as it offers wireless access and is an overall good piece of hardware for the cost).
-Good anti-virus software (most commercially available software is going to be good enough, regardless of the brand – don’t buy into the brand war hype. My recommendations are Kaspersky Anti-Virus or BitDefender).
-Good Antispyware software (Microsoft Anti-Spyware is pretty good, but you should use a combination of MS Anti-Spyware and Spybot Search and Destroy to catch everything. Lavasoft’s Ad-Aware is good, as well).
-A legitimate copy of Windows XP. This is non-negotiable. You NEED to have a non-pirated version of Windows XP, because of Windows Updates and the possibility that backdoor software was built into your copy of pirated Windows. If you refuse to spend the money on a registered copy, stop reading.

Optional Protection

-A software-based firewall (ZoneAlarm is a good choice, but if you use BitDefender, it has a built-in firewall as well).
-Third-party router software (I recommend dd-wrt for your Linksys WRT54GS, but I will not discuss at length on how to configure it).

Your network should look something like this:

Cable Modem -> Router -> Computer

And if you have wireless devices, the router feeds them data as well without a hard-wired connection. Let me say this right off the bat: Using wireless Internet for online poker is dangerous and not recommended. You are putting yourself at higher risk for comfort. If this is okay with you, so be it.

Step Two: Initial Setup

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The steps you should take in order to secure your system are as follows:

1) Reformat your system.
2) Reinstall Windows with a legitimate CD-key.
3) Do not connect your system to the Internet yet.
4) Install all hardware drivers that you have without using the Internet.
5) Install Anti-Virus software and optional firewall software.
6) Scan your system and data backups for viruses.
7) Connect your router to your computer, but do not connect the cable modem to the router.

After you have completed those steps in order and to the fullest extent, you can move on to Step Three.