For the past two years, Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker (now part of the Cereus Poker Network) have been trying to repair their images.

Ultimate Bet hired a stable of respectable pros, like Joe Sebok and Eric Baldwin, and they re-upped commitments to Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke, who has had a spectacular year in poker.

But recently, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission warned of a possible security issue at Cereus, with encryption issues allowing hackers to potentially access players’ hole cards.

It’s a sad and scary reminder of the poker site’s dirty history. First a little background:

Russ Hamilton, the architect of the Ultimate Bet cheating scandal

In 2008, UB acknowledged a huge multi-account and multimillion dollar cheating scheme in its poker room. Apparently, a group of people, including an inside person at UB — allegedly 1994 Main Event champion Russ Hamilton — set up a management account to view opponents’ hole cards to fleece real players of millions.

It was only after pressure from the poker community and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission that Ultimate Bet admitted the problem and investigated the issue. In 2008, it started refunding about $6.1 million to affected players’ accounts.

The commission found that the problem started way back in 2004 and was headed by Hamilton. The company did its best to refund all players. Still, Hamilton, who lives in Las Vegas, has not yet been charged.

With the cheating scandal still fresh in players’ minds, UB must deal with the new findings from the commission, that say potential players should “use caution when accessing the two poker sites, in particular when using a public network or a private wireless network.”

The commission said it is monitoring immediate measures that are being taken to address the security issue and has been advised that a more permanent solution is to be implemented on an urgent basis.

All this report says to me is to run far away from UB. Though it’s done its best to put the cheating scandal behind in the media, its security problems remain. Critics have long disparaged UB for its crummy software, now this report confirms the company has done little to change.

If you like money, get serious and stay away from Cereus.