DataBreaches.Net

Menu
  • About
  • Breach Notification Laws
  • Privacy Policy
  • Transparency Report
Menu

In the spirit of Christmas giving, Steam gives your account details to others

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Dissent

It was around 3:30 this afternoon when I noticed people starting to complain about weirdness on Steam’s site. Attempts to connect to the site often resulted in a landing page in a different language (I didn’t even recognize the language I was seeing when I connected to the site), and if you logged into your account in the store, lo and behold, you were likely to see someone else’s account information – including their credit card number.

Steam’s community forum started going nuts, and there didn’t seem to be any moderator around to explain to users why they were seeing others’ accounts – many in Russia – and whether their own account balances and credit card info was now at risk.

If you happened to be on Reddit, you might have seen a somewhat reassuring post from driscan:

TL;DR: no one’s been hacked

Sysadmin here: no need to worry here, no one’s been hacked. It’s just a technical issue that involves the “caching servers” operated by Steam.

In short, Steam takes partial “snapshots” of webpages commonly loaded by users to increase performance and to reduce stress on their infrastructure. But they somewhat messed up while configuring their servers, which leads to these ackward pages.

Okay, no need to worry – unless someone copied down your credit card info?

Over on Twitter, there were also tons of “what’s happening?” queries, with people also reporting sudden access to other language accounts and details. @SteamDB did an admirable job of trying to keep people informed – even though they are not affiliated with Steam or Valve – while the official Steam and Valve Twitter accounts remained maddeningly silent.

Shortly before 4 pm Eastern, there appeared to have been a server overload, and access to Steam’s community forum literally went dark:

Steam_Forum_349pm

Later, it was announced that Steam had shut down the site altogether until it could deal with the problem it was experiencing.

Steam is back online now, and Valve gave a statement to Gamespot:

“Steam is back up and running without any known issues,” a Valve spokesperson told GameSpot. “As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorized actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users.”

So how many users were potentially affected? Was it only the account info of logged-in users that was exposed or were all accounts randomly subject to exposure to others?

Valve may want this to go away with their “all clear” message, but I think they still have some questions to answer.

And what was this “configuration change,” anyway? Was it something they did because they feared a DDoS attack today? If so, it would certainly be ironic that their configuration change to keep the site working may have backfired.

 

 


Related:

  • Inquiry launched after identities of SAS soldiers leaked in fresh data breach
  • Government will 'robustly defend' compensation claims from Afghans put at risk by data breach
  • Qantas obtains injunction to prevent hacked data’s release
  • Ransomware attack disrupts Korea's largest guarantee insurer
  • More than 100 British government personnel exposed by Ministry of Defence data leak
  • Gladney Adoption Center had serious data exposures in the past few months. What will they do to prevent more?
Category: Business SectorExposure

Post navigation

← Massive breach affecting children’s info worldwide!
Anonymous Hacks Asia Pacific Telecommunity to Protest Against Censorship In Asia →

Now more than ever

"Stand with Ukraine:" above raised hands. The illustration is in blue and yellow, the colors of Ukraine's flag.

Search

Browse by Categories

Recent Posts

  • PowerSchool commits to strengthened breach measures following engagement with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
  • Hungarian police arrest suspect in cyberattacks on independent media
  • Two more entities have folded after ransomware attacks
  • British institutions to be banned from paying ransoms to Russian hackers
  • Data breach feared after cyberattack on AMEOS hospitals in Germany
  • Microsoft Releases Urgent Patch for SharePoint RCE Flaw Exploited in Ongoing Cyber Attacks
  • Global hack on Microsoft product hits U.S., state agencies, researchers say
  • Inquiry launched after identities of SAS soldiers leaked in fresh data breach
  • UK sanctions Russian cyber spies accused of facilitating murders
  • Michigan ‘ATM jackpotting’: Florida men allegedly forced machines to dispense $107K

No, You Can’t Buy a Post or an Interview

This site does not accept sponsored posts or link-back arrangements. Inquiries about either are ignored.

And despite what some trolls may try to claim: DataBreaches has never accepted even one dime to interview or report on anyone. Nor will DataBreaches ever pay anyone for data or to interview them.

Want to Get Our RSS Feed?

Grab it here:

https://databreaches.net/feed/

RSS Recent Posts on PogoWasRight.org

  • British government reportedlu set to back down on secret iCloud backdoor after US pressure
  • Idaho agrees not to prosecute doctors for out-of-state abortion referrals
  • As companies race to add AI, terms of service changes are going to freak a lot of people out. Think twice before granting consent!
  • Uganda orders Google to register as a data-controller within 30 days after landmark privacy ruling
  • Meta investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end $8 billion trial over Facebook privacy violations
  • ICE is gaining access to trove of Medicaid records, adding new peril for immigrants
  • Microsoft can’t protect French data from US government access

Have a News Tip?

Email: Tips[at]DataBreaches.net

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

Contact Me

Email: info[at]databreaches.net

Mastodon: Infosec.Exchange/@PogoWasRight

Signal: +1 516-776-7756

DMCA Concern: dmca[at]databreaches.net
© 2009 – 2025 DataBreaches.net and DataBreaches LLC. All rights reserved.