Joined: Jun 28, 2011
Posts: 170
Location: Avondale, AZ
Just saw this...
http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/11/10/2316220/valve-announces-massive-steam-server-intrusion?utm_source=feedburnerMy+MSN&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot+%28Slashdot%29&utm_content=My+MSN
SKYMTL writes "Valve has revealed that hackers have gained access to the Steam database and have pulled a variety of information. A statement from Gabe Newell reads in part: '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."
Joined: Jan 21, 2011
Posts: 270
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.
Joined: Jul 12, 2007
Posts: 13670
Joined: Jan 21, 2011
Posts: 270
i did a bunch of research yesterday about it. Valve/GabeN say that there was a server intrusion, however screen shots just appear to be a hijacked Admin account posting sites of hax etc etc.
Hopefully this gets sorted out. My guess is its EA trying to ruins Steams cred, no i dont really think that but its fun to poke fun at EA.
As far as my info, my Steam account and my Steam Forums account have 2 different passwords. All of yours should, because they aren't linked. Steam forums run Vbulliten, and from what i understand they "salt+pepper passwords. Not sure what it means but apparently its an encryption of encrypted items.
A lot of hacking going on nowadays, i wonder what is going to happen.
Joined: Jul 12, 2007
Posts: 13670
well some people were given jobs by companies that they hacked like microsoft there are a few others as well, and with the rate of unemployment i think other maybe trying for the same result, but its getting annoying and to be honest i think it is a good idea in general to employ someone that hacked you server if it was not for personal info ect and the hack was a talented hack nut people who get card or and other personal details should be done for fraud, computer misuse act and copyright and data misuse act
It is Going To Hurt
http://taylormadehosting.co.uk
Joined: Jan 21, 2011
Posts: 270
i just dont understand why they cant dedicate a few people to hunting down hacking sites in general. they should just make a "master hacking account" and then instal and run these hacks. In a controlled environment of course. I assume doing that they can kind of backwards engineer them, and figure out how they achieve the results they get. A few dedicated watchdogs like Mr.T said, could really make a world of diference.
The last hax i used was Game Genie for Sega LOL. I did however try to keep on the up and up about hacking whne i ran a Counter Strike Source clan. Going on a website and reading about it doesnt help much, however most list the features, and once you know WHAT you are up against, at least you have a little better chance to catch offenders, or at least the knowledge to make an educated decision on "apparent" hackers.
With that said, BK really does a good job at keeping the "zomg you haxx" to a minimum. As we all know, hackusations can really take away from the immersiveness of gaming. Especially in BF3 when the chat window is like 1/6th of the screen
