Valve's games-on-demand Steam service has been hacked, the company said Thursday, saying that a database containing private user information has been stolen.
That information includes user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information, according to an email sent by Valve managing director Gabe Newell to Gamasutra.
According to Newell, the company does not currently have any evidence of credit card misuse at press time, though warns that Steam users should nonetheless closely monitor their credit card activity.
Additionally, Newell said that the company is not aware of any compromised Steam accounts. While "a few" Steam web forum accounts were compromised, forcing a mandatory password change for all users, it does not appear that any main Steam accounts have been breached.
"I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience," writes Newell.
The news closely mirrors the infamous PlayStation Network attack from earlier this year, though Valve's public response time appears to be much shorter than Sony's was.
I absolutely agree! Losing the password to your Steam forum account is definitely equal to the trauma experienced by those who had loved ones die in the 9/11 attacks.
Tell me you were being sarcastic and are not actually that stupid. Or that disconnected from reality.
According to the IRS, to be in the top 1% of American earners as far as income goes you need 159,900 per year (roughly). So steam qualifies under that, as do many of its employees and users.
To be in the top 1% of the world, you need about $24,000 per year. That qualifies nearly all of steam users over 25.
Im going to school full time, buried in Student Loans, hold an internship with a small indie company, work as a server in a restaurant on the weekends to pay the bills, and am not even in the 1% of the world that I mentioned, though I work like a dog and am lucky to get 5 hours of games in a week anymore. Im tired of people complaining how much the 1% have when they can earn it just like I plan to.
Quit whining that the kid next door has a shinier toy and go earn it. Nearly all 1% earned their way into that category like Steve Jobs and Herman Cain, and so can we. Taxing them more or hacking them or camping on their front lawn isnt going to help you buddy.
I like your racist and sexist comment (with out even knowing my race. Double points!) that doesnt even address the issue of what is being discussed. Im interested to hearing your alternative to my plan to work hard and achieve success, and am sure it will be enlightening.
Or you can throw out another useless quip about a random sterotype that doesnt even address my comment at all. Classic troll.
I'm just going to post quotes and sources if that is ok.
"The actual threshold is $343,927, according to IRS statistics for the calendar year 2009, the latest available."
"Households making at least $154,643 made it into the top 5 percent of earners, while it took a minimum of $112,124 to get into the top 10 percent and at least $66,193 to place in the top 25 percent."
"Total income for the top 1 percent fell 21 percent (to $1.3 trillion in 2009 from $1.7 trillion in 2008), while the average tax rate rose to 24 percent from 23.3 percent, the IRS data showed."
"For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007," said the report from the CBO, a nonpartisan budget and tax analysis arm of Congress.
The next-highest 19 percent of earners saw their income grow by 65 percent over the same period. Income grew by just under 40 percent for the 60 percent of the population in the middle, while the 20 percent at the bottom of the scale saw income growth of only about 18 percent, the report said."
Philosophically, Bitcoin is fatally flawed. Its value creation cycle is just as arbitrary as current fiat currencies, but unlike those fiat currencies it won't keep you out of jail when the taxman comes looking for his cut.
So, it is basically crowd sourced online currency R&D powered by a speculative bubble. Luckily, we don't seem to be actively devaluing anything to create Bitcoins, they are just using up computer cycles.
I guess many people try to change their password right now, the platform is even more sluggish then usual and trying to activate my Indie Royal 2nd bundle takes forever.
Forums and Steam accounts use different user name/log-in... provided the person was intelligent enough to actually use different ones for each. Of course 3/4 of the users out there use the same infos for every-frickin'-thing they sign up for. And that's a bad idea.
They should be like XBox Live my account got hijacked there, and I know there has to be others but you never hear anything, and three months and still waiting to get compensated.
You're 'sorry'? In what world is potentially letting someone have my credit card and then not even bothering to tell me ok?
Really?
Valve? Hello?
Are you the new arrogant Sony?
(btw, I can't even bring up a log-in screen to Steam at the moment...hopefully a network issue? I enjoyed Portal 2, but at the moment I wish I'd never played anything through Steam...ever)
I'm confused how if its forum accounts that were compromised and not Steam accounts why they stated encrypted credit card numbers were taken. Surely they would be locked to the Steam accounts not the forum accounts?
"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."
This is from the notice you see the first time you log in after November 10th. Which is also in the Valve News feed.
Likely, Valve found out that their network was compromised following a security audit after the forum hack.
Tell me you were being sarcastic and are not actually that stupid. Or that disconnected from reality.
Sony: Welcome to the club Gabe.
To be in the top 1% of the world, you need about $24,000 per year. That qualifies nearly all of steam users over 25.
Im going to school full time, buried in Student Loans, hold an internship with a small indie company, work as a server in a restaurant on the weekends to pay the bills, and am not even in the 1% of the world that I mentioned, though I work like a dog and am lucky to get 5 hours of games in a week anymore. Im tired of people complaining how much the 1% have when they can earn it just like I plan to.
Quit whining that the kid next door has a shinier toy and go earn it. Nearly all 1% earned their way into that category like Steve Jobs and Herman Cain, and so can we. Taxing them more or hacking them or camping on their front lawn isnt going to help you buddy.
Or you can throw out another useless quip about a random sterotype that doesnt even address my comment at all. Classic troll.
"The actual threshold is $343,927, according to IRS statistics for the calendar year 2009, the latest available."
"Households making at least $154,643 made it into the top 5 percent of earners, while it took a minimum of $112,124 to get into the top 10 percent and at least $66,193 to place in the top 25 percent."
"Total income for the top 1 percent fell 21 percent (to $1.3 trillion in 2009 from $1.7 trillion in 2008), while the average tax rate rose to 24 percent from 23.3 percent, the IRS data showed."
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/national/who-are-the-1-percent% 3F-the-answ
er-may-surprise-you...
"For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007," said the report from the CBO, a nonpartisan budget and tax analysis arm of Congress.
The next-highest 19 percent of earners saw their income grow by 65 percent over the same period. Income grew by just under 40 percent for the 60 percent of the population in the middle, while the 20 percent at the bottom of the scale saw income growth of only about 18 percent, the report said."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45044618/ns/business-personal_finance/t/i ncome-top-p
ercent-far-outgrew-others-report/#.TsHhKkNut6A
And some animated food for thought...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0
I do not need to change my password =D All my payments to Valve were made with PayPal =D
Of course, PayPal sucks in many levels... I cannot wait to Valve support Bitcoin!
So, it is basically crowd sourced online currency R&D powered by a speculative bubble. Luckily, we don't seem to be actively devaluing anything to create Bitcoins, they are just using up computer cycles.
Lucky me, never bought anything there by cc.
Also: free TF2 Hats coming, I hope.
I was supposed to find this out how?
...silence....
You're 'sorry'? In what world is potentially letting someone have my credit card and then not even bothering to tell me ok?
Really?
Valve? Hello?
Are you the new arrogant Sony?
(btw, I can't even bring up a log-in screen to Steam at the moment...hopefully a network issue? I enjoyed Portal 2, but at the moment I wish I'd never played anything through Steam...ever)
Sometimes video game companies stun me.
This is from the notice you see the first time you log in after November 10th. Which is also in the Valve News feed.
Likely, Valve found out that their network was compromised following a security audit after the forum hack.