In what we are now calling the Year of the Hack, Valve’s digital distribution platform Steam is the latest to fall beneath the might of outside intrusion. A message from Gabe Newell was recently sent out en masse to Steam users (and posted on the front of the site’s forum pages), emphasizing the continued internal investigation into any personal data misuse in the wake of the November 6th attack. Originally believed to be limited to the Steam forums, Newell’s update confirms the breach made it into the Steam’s database.
The breach was uncovered once Steam users began reporting being redirected to a hacker forum and/or receiving spam messages from the site Fkn0wned.com. The forums were then shut down, as Valve’s internal investigation began. Newell’s message to users emphasized the lack of any evidence suggesting data compromise, although all forum passwords will need to be changed by players during their next log-in.
Below is the full message sent from Gabe Newell:
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.
Gabe.
Any active Steam forum users here, EGs? Post your reactions to the breach and Valve’s response in the comments section.