After last year’s Steam security breach, many users may have been fearful that their credit card information has been stolen. While the case is still under investigation, unfortunately Gabe Newell has advised everyone to keep a careful eye on their credit card statements.
The news gets worse however. While there is no evidence that information was taken, Gabe says it’s “likely” that the hackers obtained a “backup file containing user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information”.
Here’s the full statement:
“Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users
We continue our investigation of last year’s intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.
Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.
We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it’s a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.
We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.
Gabe”
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Encrypted data is a good thing yeah.
Only got a Steam account in 2010 so I’m safe ;p
The details in that data probably wouldn’t have been too valuable anyway. Most of the credit cards used in that period have expired.