Important! Steam forums 'Possibly' Hacked..

[Darpor]

It'll be my own fault when I find out I've agreed to sell my future children into slave labour.

Haven't we all done that under the current government? Another topic for another thread of course.

[jimmyshand]

It'll be my own fault when I find out I've agreed to sell my future children into slave labour.

Haven't we all done that under the current government? Another topic for another thread of course.

It's us that are going to become slave labour Darren, not our kids! Now being made to work until we're at least 70 and on a seemingly permanent pay-freeze. Our kids are just going to be left to wander the streets aimlessly and jobless because no old people can retire!

To put in into "train" related context, can you imagine 70 year old train drivers? Flying up the WCML at 140mph in a Pendolino with doddering old Fred at the helm doesn't sound like a recipe for success does it?!

[jarmstro]

I wonder what this means?

Steam have all my card details so that when I buy it is just one click with no need to enter anything.

Is my card potentially open to exploitation after this hack?

John A

[jimmyshand]

I wonder what this means?

Steam have all my card details so that when I buy it is just one click with no need to enter anything.

Is my card potentially open to exploitation after this hack?

John A

That's my worry too. I don't know if I have a forum account or not, I''ve not really used it but it may be that I might have registered years back when RS first went Steam.

Don't know, am I compromised???

This is another arrow in the debate over Steam and online games management. Electronic fraud and crime is ever rising and getting ever smarter. I've had an online bank account hacked in the past and I'm now very, very wary about having bank and card details online. I'd prefer it if RSC divorced from Steam completely, Steam will always be a major target for fraudsters and criminals.

[AndyM77]

As far as we know, it's just the forum that has been exploited. The payment systems, etc.. "should" be unaffected, but we won't really know until Valve (the owners of Steam) give us some firm news. Unfortunately Valve are using an old version of vBulliten (their forum software) which has been exploited before on other 'High Profile' sites, so it's nothing new. The latest version of the forum software (v4) is time consuming for site administrators to deploy as quite a lot of the backend has been changed and even simple things such as "Themes" need to be remade for the new software, which is (I assume) why Valve haven't got round to updating it yet..

The original post was to simply inform users with shared passwords (i.e using the same password for their forum account as their Steam client) that there is a possible risk, although very slight, that their Steam account could be compromised. It wasn't intended to cause outright panic.

Valve were extremely forthcoming a few years ago when their 'CyberCafe' user accounts got hacked. Since then they've increased the security on both normal Steam accounts and those of CyberCafe owners, and if there was any breach of these accounts again then they'd be quite quick to let the users know (by going on the past experience).

[Easilyconfused]

Questions about credit card security need to be referred to Steam Support rather than speculated on here. Nobody here has any answers - only guesswork and speculation.

The initial reports are the forum was alledgedly "hacked" rather than the main Steam Shop. If you use the same password for both then it would be a good idea to change the shop password as soon as possible.

Paul Jackson has stated to me personally, face to face that Steam is the way they are committed to so any comments on the desirability of RS.Com divorcing from Steam need to go to RS.Com support rather than continuing to post here about it since there is no "debate" as such - only people expressing their views. RS.Com have said they are committed to that delivery method.

[transadelaide]

I'd prefer it if RSC divorced from Steam completely, Steam will always be a major target for fraudsters and criminals.

I don't agree with this sentiment. Steam is the best online gaming retail/distribution system around (hello Sony!) and I would rather see RS.com stick with an operator that has an excellent track record when it comes to the important bits of retail and distribution than switch to a lesser operator or go in-house. The alternative of going to an in-house retail/distribution system would be far more dangerous and require a significant amount of capital to set up.

Practically, a small security measure you can take is to clear a tick box so that your payment details will not be stored and you'll have to enter them each time. I use this method because in the big scheme of things the 15 or so seconds it takes to type in my Visa card number is next to no time at all, I would waste far more time by watching just a single TV show when it airs rather than off my hard drive where I can skip the ad breaks!

Paying using a PayPal account is also an option if you trust them more than Valve. However, when combined with using a Visa Debit card I have set up for just online purchases, I'm happy enough to stick with using the Steam Client directly.

[davejc64]

I have just submitted a support ticket to steam asking for a definitive answer to whether the forum has been hacked and what if any customer security details are at risk, be interesting to see if I get a straight answer.

[jarmstro]

Being a suspicious old sod (and broke), I've tried to delete my card details from steam but cannot find any way to do so?

In hindsight I think they should at least not hold the security number and should require you to re-submit this when making a purchase.

[stephenholmes]

Good afternoon everyone
It has been a while since I purchased from steam
However I never ever tick the box allowing my card details to be saved
Kind regards Stephen

[LoneWolfDon]

Being a suspicious old sod (and broke), I've tried to delete my card details from steam but cannot find any way to do so?

From your Steam-Client's upper-right corner, click on the "Myname's Account" (Myname being whatever your Username is), then under the "Your Steam Account" info, if you had it previously set to remember your CC details, then there should be a small clickable text-link thereabouts with something like a "Remove Credit Card" (I forget the exact wording). Just click on that link.

If it's not there, then you already have your Credit Card's info as not-saved on their system.

As a side-note; If a User makes any changes to their account, such as change-of-email-address or change-of-password, then if they had their CC details saved, it will then automatically be removed from their system as a security precaution.

[peterfhayes]

Don et al
Also if you make any changes to your account STEAM sends you a new authorisation code to your email address, so to me they seem pretty secure.
You can't seem to do anything to your account without that code.
Regards
PeterH

[220389]

Can this thread be stickyed asap please.

Re- The information released by Gabe Newell.

http://www.1up.com/news/steam-forums-down-after-hack
http://kotaku.com/5858473/steam-hacked- ... ard-theft/
http://www.shacknews.com/article/71052/ ... ond-forums

Chris

[Easilyconfused]

Despite coverage on various non-affiliated sites - the main Steam site seems to have no mention of the issue. Like everyone else I am not able to get into the forums.

I (personally) will not sticky the thread until some official announcement is made on Steam's own site. Quotes on other sites don't do it for me since there is no proof of veracity despite them apparently coming from somebody in charge at Steam.

Other moderators may see it differently but that is my take.

[220389]

Did also pop up as a news item for me on my main steam programe.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

Same message also appears on the steam forums tab as well.

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.

Just thought may be important for many Steam users.

Chris