Hackers Break Into Steam Gaming Database
By Matt Liebowitz, SecurityNewsDaily Staff Writer
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Hackers broke into the user database of the popular online gaming platform Steam and gained access to customers' names, passwords, email addresses and credit card information.
According to the video game distribution company Valve, which runs Steam, the breach occurred Nov. 6, when the intruders defaced the user forums.
In a letter that Valve sent to its members and was obtained by gaming news and reviews site ZTGD, Valve founder Gabe Newell said the company found that the breach went "beyond the Steam forums," and that hackers obtained access to the Steam database, on which the sensitive user information is stored.
Steam has 35 million users and is the world's largest digital distributor of video games.
Despite the value, both personal and financial, of the content kept by the compromised gaming database, Newell informed Steam customers that the company had no 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."
Newell said there have been "only a few" compromised forum accounts but no compromised Steam accounts or reports so far of credit card misuse.
Valve recommended that Steam members, as a precaution, change their account passwords for the forum and any other online accounts that use the same password, and closely monitor their credit card activity.
