Valve Corporation co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has alerted Steam users that a database used to store information on customers was breached on Sunday 6 November 2011.
This was first noticed when the Steam forums were defaced. Valve investigated and has subsequently discovered the database breach.
In the database was contained information such as user names, passwords, game purchases, e-mail addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information.
Valve is investigating the extent of the database breach, and whether any of the encrypted credit card information was cracked.
In the meantime, the Steam forums have been closed, and users will be prompted to change their passwords when the forums are re-opened.
While Valve is not currently aware of any breached Steam gaming accounts, Newell advised that it may not be a bad idea to change account passwords as well.
“I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience,” said Newell.
Full announcement made by Gabe Newell:
10 November 2011
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.
Steam hacked: Valve investigates credit card info theft << Comments and views
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