Yesterday(Thursday), Gabe Newell, founder and CEO of Valve Software announced about the Security breach on Steam Forum Database following the forum defacement on Nov 6,2011.
Here is the Announcement:
They recommends you to closely watch your credit card activity, Even though there is no evidence of credit card misuse at this time.
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.
According to the report, the Steam forum database is compromised, they recommend users to change the password for Forum. Though there is no data compromise in steam accounts, changing the password in steam make you secure.
If you use the same password for steam & steam forums and other accounts including email, you must change the password now. Steam introduced "verification by email" whenever you login from different computer(like facebook). But if you use the same password for email, an attacker can login into your email and hack your account.
Security Tips:
- If you are using very weak password , change it now. Though it is encrypted, weak password can be cracked.
- Keep an eye on your credit card statement and report any unexpected transactions
- Don't store your credit card details in any website.
- Enable "Verify by Email" option, this will ask you to verify whenever you login from different systme.
- Do not use the same password for email (use unique and strong password for email alone).
