Late last year as you may or may not know, Steam was the victim of a hacking attempt that did breach into Steam’s secure database. Valve has continued to investigate the event since the intrusion and instructed members of Steam to keep an eye on their credit card statements.
Well today Gabe Newell has posted an update on the status of that investigation into the security breach. Gabe stated that it is ‘probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file’. This backup file apparently contains user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information for transactions dating between 2004 – 2008.
I noticed myself that shortly after the Steam hack, my credit card on file with Steam had been compromised as it has been attempted to be used at several online stores. I can’t say in 100% certainty that it is related to the Steam hack, but its timing is awfully coincidental. Thankfully I actually got a new card number for an unrelated reason (platinum upgrade), so I did not have any issues of unwarranted charges. My favorite is the continual declined transaction attempts with IGN Entertainment Inc.’s advertising platform that my credit card company sends me via email alerts due to the card being closed.
So keep your eyes on your credit card statements (which you should always do btw), and do take Gabe Newell’s advice about using their Steam Guard to futhrer protect your Steam account.
