Valve Addresses Alleged Steam Hack And Clarifies Situation
A Steam logo of a video game digital distribution service is seen on a smartphone and a pc screen.
Over the past day or so, a viral story spread that there was a Steam data breach that could expose account information millions of players. At the very least, it seemed worth changing your password as of course no one wants to get hacked and lose potentially thousands of dollars of a game library. I was even paranoid enough to do that myself.
Well, about that.
This whole saga started in the Dark Web, a thing that yes, really does exist, where a user reported that they were selling 89 million accounts' data, and word subsequently spread like wildfire.
However, Valve has now commented that this was not a breach of Steam systems, but a leak of 'older text messages' that had been sent to Steam users, which include one-time codes and the phone numbers they were sent to. But those codes don't work. And the phone numbers are not able to be linked to specific Steam accounts. You can just read the entire thing here:
So no, Valve says this is not a breach that endangers your Steam account and you do not have to do anything as elaborate as change your password or phone number associated with your account. That said, they say any time is a good time to check out your Steam security especially by setting up Two-Factor Authentication.
What can I say? I was swept up in the paranoia. But Valve says that wasn't necessary and what was exposed here appears to be useless in going after specific accounts.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
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