Online Game Service Steam Gets Hacked!

Valve corporation, make of many popular game series' such as Half-Life, Team Fortress and Portal, had its popular video game on-demand service hacked on November 6th, although it is not yet known whether they all were taken or not . Apparently an outrageous 35 million possibly had their personal information compromised in the attack. According to the BBC, "The attackers used login details from the forum hack to access a database that held ID and credit card data" which could now be used for any number of purposes. Valve issued a statement letting users know the extent of the situation:

Online Game Service Steam Gets Hacked!

"We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have 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. We are still investigating."

Adding this as well:

"We don't have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely."

They alerted customers that they will have to change their forum passwords the next time they login, and suggested that they change their Steam passwords (which are apparently separate) as well. This is not a great time for this to happen to Steam, as many high profile titles such as Modern Warfare 3 and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, have come out this week, and this may make users a bit more wary about using the service now and in the future.