Steam has been Hacked

[Mr_Loon]

From the man himself

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.


We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.


We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.


While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.


We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.


We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.


I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

What a pisser, time to change a few passwords :angry: :angry: :angry:

 

[fusion_power]

Good time to mention that I never installed or used Steam.


Sad that even such big and well matured online platforms like Steam are still not save after years of existence. I wonder what the Hackers now do with all these Data, it must be an huge package.

 

[moz]

Next in line: Xbox (or wii, but what'd be the point )

 

[Prometheus]

(or wii, but what'd be the point )

Actually, no personal info or credit card info is stored, there. Hell, you're not even asked for it when redeeming points cards or paying with credit cards, quite unlike some other services.


Anyway, I hope this doesn't turn into a huge disaster, since what's been taken from Steam (and other similar services before them) is very valuable to criminals. Alas, I can imagine that it is going to cause a lot of strife and stress.

 

[Nintendo]

Meh, I've never used Steam, anyway.

 

[WizardStan]

It's only vauable if they can read it. Valve is not Sony: passwords and credit card information were reasonably encrypted so there's no reason to think these things are in immediate danger.

 

[Prometheus]

^ True, but even things like addresses and whatnot get used in scams for believability and so on, which can eventually end up with innocent people being condemned via the internet when they had no involvement whatsoever (as a quick and easier-to-explain example, see, for example, the photographs of real soldiers and other people, used by scammers for the same reasons). My understanding from reading up on scams and the like is that even the stuff they could read does have some value to them, even if it's not as high as the value of credit card info and users' passwords.

 

[Mr Rob]

^ True, but even things like addresses and whatnot get used in scams for believability and so on, which can eventually end up with innocent people being condemned via the internet when they had no involvement whatsoever (as a quick and easier-to-explain example, see, for example, the photographs of real soldiers and other people, used by scammers for the same reasons). My understanding from reading up on scams and the like is that even the stuff they could read does have some value to them, even if it's not as high as the value of credit card info and users' passwords.

And part of it is volume, too. Having 10 addresses for a scam doesn't get you far, but with huge amounts of email addresses and other information, even a low success rate of phishing can make it profitable for the people involved.

 

[Prometheus]

Exactly. And there are still scams conducted by post, too, which of course obtaining postal addresses would help them with.

 

[WizardStan]

Good points. Spam still exists because they only need that one hit in a million.

 

[Prometheus]

Good points. Spam still exists because they only need that one hit in a million.

I do not like unsolicited Spam!


I do not like it from a boat


I do not like it from a goat


I don't need a huge torpedo


I don't need help with my libido


I do not like it from Chinese


I do not like it, stop it, please!


I do not like unsolicited Spam,


So please REMOVE ME Sam I Am!


(From an old comment here.)