Monday, November 14, 2011

Game company Valve confirms credit card information theft

          Co-founder Newell advises users to change their account passwords. Video game company Valve has confirmed that hackers could have stolen "encrypted" credit card numbers during the 6 November hack attack of its of its Steam forums.

          Last week, it was revealed that the company's Steam video game service, which has over 35 million users, was breached by hackers. However, Valve had said that there was no 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."

          Valve co-founder Gabe Newell had apologised for the security breach and advised users to change their account passwords. Newell said, "While there is evidence of a deeper intrusion, the company is not yet requiring all Steam users to reset their account passwords, which are separate from forum accounts.
"I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologise for the inconvenience," he added.

          Now, the company has emailed customers the database containing "information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing information and encrypted credit card information" was also accessed by the intruders. A message posted by Newell on 10 November said that investigation has found that "the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums." Earlier this year, in what is believed to be the biggest attack in online history, hackers devastated the services of Sony's PlayStation Network, crippling the game service for months.

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