Users of the World Poker Tour Amateur Poker League website have been advised to change their passwords after a hacker published over 175,000 email addresses and passwords this week. And almost 47,000 of the exposed passwords were of a “default reset” nature.
The motive of the hacker, identified only by the Twitter user account name @smitt3nz, is uncertain, although he or she has commented “when will people learn?” along with the publication of the hacked information on a website frequented by hacker trolls.
The hacker also tweeted:
“Happy New Year to all y0 cr4ck3r5 & h4ck3r5 (46901 have the same password:sdf7asdf6asdg8df **Default reset password?**)”
The target is surprising; the WPTAPL website does not facilitate real money poker, but serves as an information and organisational centre that coordinates recreational poker players in freeroll live poker tournaments across northern America and Britain.
Interestingly, many of the email addresses published suggest government, and especially military, interest in the game.
Reporting on the hack, the publication Cyber War News comments that the addresses also include:
“Whitehouse, IRS, US courts, Wichita city, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Department of Justice, NASA.gov and many more.”
WPT has yet to comment on the hacking other than its warning to users to change passwords.