Steam Hack: What does this mean for online gaming?
12/27/2015

Written by: Jason Heidel and Chris L.

We are good people in times of evil. Already well known among the gamer community, there has been a Steam hack that has been causing a lot alarms to be set off. Steam is an online gaming site that is owned and operated by the Valve software company. They are a dominant and driving force in the video game market, and players value their Steam accounts like old timers might safeguard a prize baseball card collection. Sorry, Dad.

Recently, a caching error in the Steam online store has led to a wave panic to wash across the steam community. Active gamers claim that games or downloadable content were purchased without their consent. Moreover, the consumers’ credit card information was visible on the page for others to see. The concern was that malicious individuals could scrape their accounts and use the credit card info for their own purposes.

There was a flash point on Christmas day. While most gamers were opening presents or standing in line to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a number of Steam users had  personal information revealed such as name and email. Parent company, Valve, has alleged that no credit card information compromised in the online attack. That does not imply that there threat was bogus. Recent web traffic revealed that there were threats from a number of hacking groups earlier this week. Many gamers, who spend a lot of time online, understand that hacking groups like Anonymous can and do make good on such threats. This has placed gamers in the Steam community on edge. Several hacker groups have stated that they will attack gaming servers such as Xbox Live, PlayStation network, Steam and Minecraft.

One group called “SkidNP” seems to have fulfilled their promise of taking down steam servers.
(Editors note: This has not been confirmed yet. 0830 12/27) Rumors surrounding the SkidNP seem to have been debunked, as a Valve spokesperson told GameSpot, “…As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users.” According to Google, the search term ‘steam support phone number’ went off the charts but gamers had to rely on forums to voice their concerns. You can follow the timeline through this customer support thread here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1223-qroc-4460

Gaming guru and sought after source of information, Tom Scott, can walk you through what happened.

So, what does this mean for my steam account?

The answer is: not much. Yes, the hacking groups made a dent in the Steam software but, as previously stated, Valve dealt with the issue.  Yes, the threat is real (thanks to Megadeth for the line) but it was more an annoyance than a critical strike. Hackers may have caused some gamers to panic but most gamers, logical, puzzle solving individuals by their very nature, allowed the bug to work itself out. They are used to that. Bugs, AKA computer or game glitches, happen all the time, most frequently during the early stages of game testing. When this happens gamers immediately go to their outlets of expression to talk about the problems and share information.

This massive sharing of open information pours in more data than one team of dedicated testers can ever produce. While there is a inherent difference between a malicious attack and buggy game, the similarities are undeniable. Gamers ‘in the trenches’ recognize a problem immediately and turn to their online neighbors to ask if they were experiencing that same thing. The nigherbor checks his/her steam account and sees the same thing. Followed by a swift, “Oh, shit” moment, the instant messages start lighting up like a Christmas tree. Not within hours, but within minutes, game developers, moderators, and other influential people are responding to the hack, and quickly the status quo is returned.

While this isn’t the first online hack, breach, caching error, or whatever you want to call it, and surely won’t be the last, it was more of an blip than a bomb. Of course, people have a right to be concerned and when they give private information to a company they expect the company, be it Valve or other large corporation, to safeguard that information. We want to hear from the gamers whose Steam account was compromised. What happened? Did anyone charge your credit card, and what did they buy? Let us know in the comments below…. or PM!

With all the Christmas spirit going around this article, I feel John McLaine should be screaming “Yippe ki-yea! Mother…“