Warning: Steam Account Security Issues

Warning: The Steam platform has some major account security issues right now. Posting this notice here as not only do some RIFT players play the game through Steam; a large amount of PC gamers use the Steam platform for various games (Fallout 4/etc).

You might have noticed that you cannot access the Steam store page. This is because it has been taken down due to some major caching issues.

Briefly:

• At some point today, various Steam users noticed that instead of being on their accounts, their account info/payment options/transaction history were all that of a different person’s account.
• People unintentionally accessed other people’s account details including names, addresses, phone numbers and transaction history. Luckily, it seems only the last few digits of credit card numbers were visible.
• Refreshing the Steam pages would cause you to access different people’s accounts each time.
• At some point the store page language turned to Russian, and at other times the currencies used in the store would change.
• There have been some reports of unauthorized purchases, but they are so few and far between that they might not be legitimate.

You can view some of the events unfold with Reddit user HalfBurntToast’s thread here. User Tailszefox also has an explanation of caching for those not familiar with the subject.

Communication

As at the time of this post, Steam has not made any official announcement relating to the current issues.

There’s a screengrab of a post making the social media rounds recently before the site went down claiming that Steam has not been hacked and that credit card info/phone numbers are not visible to users. However, the post is from a volunteer moderator on the Steam forums and should not be considered an official Valve comment. (The phone numbers not being visible has already been debunked by multiple users).

What To Do

So what should you do and don’t do?

• DO NOT try to log into Steam or unlink your Paypal/Credit Card info from within the Steam website (if you can even access it). @SteamDB (not Valve) has suggested that this will simply put you at increased risk of being affected by the current issues plaguing Steam.

• However, you CAN unlink Steam from the Paypal website (not via the Steam website!). To do so, go to the Paypal website -> Profile -> My Money then head to Pre-Approved Payments and search for “Valve”. (This only works if you linked your Paypal account to Steam).

• There’s currently no quick solution to unlink your Credit Card from Steam (without actually accessing Steam, which is not recommended).

• It’s probably best not to go on the Steam website even if it comes back up until we get an official announcement/explanation from Valve.

Be sure to check your Credit Card statements and bank account statements over the next few days to ensure there have not been any unauthorized purchases. Since this is apparently a caching issue, there shouldn’t be a way for other users to purchase games from your account, but it’s probably prudent just to check every now and then.

Also, a safer option in the future is to consider removing all payment information from any online accounts after you make any purchases.

tl;dr – Steam users able to access other users’ account information including name, address and phone numbers. Some users claiming that other users have purchased games on their account without their permission. Don’t access Steam. Unlink Paypal and any other payment options you had saved to your Steam account from outside the Steam website (i.e. go to Paypal and unlink your Steam account; don’t go to the Steam website).