Steam forums hacked and Steam database accessed

Gabe Newell, the founder and CEO of Valve Software, has announced through a statement that its online digital store, game library and multiplayer network has experienced a security breach and data loss.

Here is the statement released by Steam:

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.

Lately, we’ve seen Sony attacked, then Sony again, and now Steam, it seems hackers are on some kind of hunting spree. It would be wise to follow Gabe’s advice and change your Steam password, and eventually your passwords identical to the one previously used on Steam.

Who is going to be next? Anyone want to bet?

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