Steam Accounts Hacked, Credit Card Info Obtained

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.