77,000 Steam Accounts Compromised Monthly, Says Valve

[IamLEAM1983]

Do they target accounts with more games?

I don't honestly know; what I've mostly had to deal with is person-to-person attempts at phishing or e-begging. "You have so many games, I thought you'd be more generous!" is a pretty common hook, a pathetic attempt at guilt-tripping your mark. The type I've had to deal with usually involves kids from Eastern Europe - or scammers claiming to be kids - who figure I'll pull a Post-Christmas Ordeal Ebenezer Scrooge and buy them 80$ games in exchange for TF2 hats. Since we're in Christmastime, I'm expecting one of these somewhere between now and the New Year.

As for my two hijacking instances, I figure the hackers assume that there's enough pedigree to my account for the illicit users to settle with using what I have. I never linked my credit card info with my Steam account, but I did have to ask Valve to remove a credit card that wasn't mine.

So yeah. I learned to change my password twice a year the hard and painfully annoying way.

 

[alj]

Multiple post please delete

 

[alj]

this baffles me beyond belief. the whole point of having an authenticator is that it is unique and cannot be leaked out. using same authneticator for everything is same thing as using same password for every website. its just a stupid idea to begin with.

It does not work like that , its one app but each service you sign up for has its own key. The key is only ever shared the one time you register it , there is no way to bypass it.[/quote]

 

[Xan Krieger]

What options do those of us without a smartphone have? I know it can text me if I forget my password but that's the extent of their protection as far as I know.

 

[camazotz]

Calculator time: Steam says 77,000 accounts a month are compromised. So: 924,000 a year.

Steam also says it has 125 million active accounts (google search that one). that means that annually they have .007% accounts compromised. A 7th of a percent.

That means that you have a chance of 7 in 1000 of being randomly compromised on Steam. I will bet the odds go up if you are in to CSGO or TF2, though.

 

[camazotz]

Damn double post!!!!!

 

[C117]

Have a Steam account, but not a smartphone (at least not one that can handle that app). Guess I'll just stick to e-mail authentication for now...