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J.C.

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Posts posted by J.C.

  1. As Sinister said, the intrusion originated on the Forums, but the attackers got past that and "obtained access to a Steam database" that "contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information". So, they reached that system, but Valve says they "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"

     

    So... Using credit cards for buying games there is... Unsafe?

    There is always a degree of risk involved in every transaction, not just on STEAM, but on every online and face-to-face transaction. That's why your credit card should have hard limits that let you use them normally but would not destroy your finances, should they become compromised.

     

    In answer to your question, it depends. Valve says that the credit card information was encrypted. If the information was indeed taken (which we don't know at this point), the important point is how well implemented the encryption is. I hope they did it right.

     

    Finally, they said they "don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely", which is good advice. I check mine at least once a day, as a habit. Nothing weird so far.

  2. I just got this message from STEAM

    ---------------------------------------

    10 November 2011

     

    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.

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