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.
I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally. What makes you so damn special?!
"I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it". -Alien vs. Predator
What happened prior to this discovery after the initial hack of the forums but before the Steam account and credit card info was discovered as possibly compromised, there is more info not covered in the above IGN.com article.
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Unsatisfied with merely enabling cheating in Steam games with unauthorized code, it would appear that a group called FknOwned took its hackery a step further, hacking the Steam user forum to insert an ad for its own site, which promises hacks, along with "general discussion sections, hacking tutorials and tools, porn, free giveaways and much more." NeoGAF user imek reported that the same message came in as an email from Steam.
We say "it would appear" because we didn't witness the hack for ourselves; rather than allow a hacking site to advertise itself prominently, Valve has taken the forums down "for maintenance."
Last edited by japanimater on Thu Nov 10, 2011 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally. What makes you so damn special?!
"I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it". -Alien vs. Predator
Everyone will get a copy of Alien Swarm as compensation.
We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;—World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.
CaptainTripps wrote:Everyone will get a copy of Alien Swarm as compensation.
Naw, everyone will get their 4th copy of Half-Life2.
I'm not racist, I hate everyone equally. What makes you so damn special?!
"I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it". -Alien vs. Predator
stickbeast wrote:
However many dicks she can manage to fit in her mouth in a year really isn't any of your business and you shouldn't judge her for it.
im not looking to get anything for the downtime since I dont use the forums, and I havent been affected yet as far as I know.. my skyrim preload is complete so as long as I can play that for the next week I find the apology unnecessary.
and a question:
are encrypted cc numbers hackproof?
If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you'll start thinking about penis? "Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!" -Chris Kluwe on Emmett Burns
2014-02-28 17:25:33 RED *DEAD* Cursedbagel67 What, then ban me.
2014-02-28 17:25:44 BLU Cursedbagel67 Do it.
Yep. Once encrypted those digits can never be decrypted. Which is why they're saved. For the undecryptability. Totally undecryptable. Can never ever be turned back into just a normal number to be used to charge your credit card for more games. Totally totally undecryptable.