Don’t Get Hacked Like Raymer

2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer was temporarily victimized by an account hacker who used brute force and repeated attempts to guess Raymer’s Poker Stars password and gain access to his account on Sunday. The hacker than opened up several heads-up sit-’n'-go tournaments in larger amounts and began dumping the contents of the account into that of someone screen-named “Ikeyrson,” apparently oblivious to the fact that Raymer’s play is typically watched dozens of onlookers every time he logs on to the Stars site. Raymer admitted in followups on a popular poker forum that he had not chosen the strongest possible password.

How can you avoid Raymer’s fate. The following guidelines will guard against someone finding out your password and using your account illegally:

1. Make your password as long as possible. The longer it is, the more difficult it will be to attack the password with a brute-force search. Always use at least 6 characters in your password, at least two of which are numeric.

2. Use as many different characters as possible when forming your password. Use numbers, punctuation characters and, when possible, mixed upper and lower-case letters. Choosing characters from the largest possible alphabet will make your password more secure.

3. Do not use personal information in your password that someone else is likely to be able to figure out. Obviously, things like your name, phone number, and address are to be avoided. Even names of acquaintances and the like should not be used.

4. Do not use words, geographical names, or biographical names that are listed in standard dictionaries.

5. Never use a password that is the same as your account number.

6. Do not use passwords that are easy to spot while you’re typing them in. Passwords like 12345, qwerty (i.e., all keys right next to each other), or nnnnnn should be avoided.

Try This If You’re Having Difficulty Selecting a Good Password

If you are having difficulty picking a good password, one good method is to use the first letter of each word in a phrase you can easily remember. For example, “Alta is my kind of place” would be Aimkop. Another method is to intentionally use misspelled words, or words with a number or punctuation mark suffixed. Examples include: braekfast, kite276, and weather. (the period at the end is part of the password). Also, many hackers use numbers or punctuation instead of letters to do a basic encrypt of text, as in: h3llo is hello or he!!o is also hello. Don’t copy any of these examples, but y0u g3t the d4ift! The more creative you are the better.

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