Steam Is Going Haywire, People Can Access Others' Accounts

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There we were, feeling smug in our PC slippers that Sony were having trouble authenticating new PlayStation accounts this Christmas Day, and Steam goes nutso-crazy. And in a really serious way. As Kotaku reports on this merry eve, people are logging into Steam to discover they have access to someone else’s account. Full access, letting them see email addresses, personal details, and most of all, see Steam Wallet money.


Clearly most people at Valve will be at home, filling their face with roast Vortigaunt, so a response to the crisis seems slow. At the time of writing, I’m still able to log into my Steam account through the app, but the website version seems to either be crashing under the weight of people observing the news, or brought down at their end in a “QUICK, PULL THE RED LEVER!” sort of way. Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, as well as having too many Es in his name, has found looking at purchase histories “will bounce around other random accounts too.”

Obviously there’s no word yet if this is a hack, some giant internal screw-up, or perhaps an elaborate ARG informing us of the imminent release of Half-Life 3. Again, according to Kotaku, Steam Guard (which fires off an email to you if someone tries to log into your account from an unrecognised computer) isn’t preventing people’s accounts from being accessed.

Edit: People in our comments are reporting it’s a caching issue, the store serving you someone else’s cached page, so if you didn’t log in, you’re fine. So glad I logged in in order to write this story. With the whole thing pulled offline, it seems people should be safe right now. I imagine they’ll insist everyone change their passwords come tomorrow.

Posted:
Related Forum: PC Gaming Forum

Source: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/12/25/steam-is-going-haywire-people-can-access-others-accounts/

Comments

"Steam Is Going Haywire, People Can Access Others' Accounts" :: Login/Create an Account :: 44 comments

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ehPosted:

Annnnnnd the console fanboys have spoken, remind me again how long did it take for PSN to compensate for their hacking in 2011??? 3 years? 4 years? How many times has xbox live service been down just in 2015 alone? I can think of 3 times personally just in 2015 alone. Steam has one issue and console players harp on the opportunity to try and point out that steam has issues too. No one said steam was perfect atleast payment types are secured *cough*

Steam = free
Xbox/psn= paid for

Steam has less issues than both consoles put together

CraigPosted:

Also, Steam may have been down, but we could still access our games and play them online successfully.

I wasn't even aware of the issue until a group of friends started talking about it.

CraigPosted:

-Samantha
kljasdkagfaskfasfdoh
lolohnoeszsz
Daniel So "Nothing ever happens to steam" hmm okay.


Haha yeah PC users give Sony/MS crap because of their service yet Steam seems to have more serious issues than PSN/XBL.


rofl? This is the only problem I can think of in recent history that has been an issue with steam (which is a free service). Yea this was a massive blunder but it was fixed quickly and there shouldn't be any issues with account security.


I'd rather Live or PSN go down for a couple days than have someone I don't know be able to log into my steam account full of sensitive info.


You clearly have no read it...

People only had access to email addresses and other shit that is not usful.

Card/Paypal details are not compromised!

Live and PSN are paid for services Steam is free...

LiaPosted:

Im really surprised this happened steam never usually has major problems like this.

YhormPosted:

kljasdkagfaskfasfdoh
lolohnoeszsz
Daniel So "Nothing ever happens to steam" hmm okay.


Haha yeah PC users give Sony/MS crap because of their service yet Steam seems to have more serious issues than PSN/XBL.


rofl? This is the only problem I can think of in recent history that has been an issue with steam (which is a free service). Yea this was a massive blunder but it was fixed quickly and there shouldn't be any issues with account security.


I'd rather Live or PSN go down for a couple days than have someone I don't know be able to log into my steam account full of sensitive info.

FreshwafflePosted:

All it showed was email, last four digits of payment card, and steam wallet amount.

322Posted:

lolohnoeszsz
Daniel So "Nothing ever happens to steam" hmm okay.


Haha yeah PC users give Sony/MS crap because of their service yet Steam seems to have more serious issues than PSN/XBL.


rofl? This is the only problem I can think of in recent history that has been an issue with steam (which is a free service). Yea this was a massive blunder but it was fixed quickly and there shouldn't be any issues with account security.

ReevyPosted:

This is so funny, I would do this and just give myself peoples invs on CS:GO lol

lolohnoeszszPosted:

Daniel So "Nothing ever happens to steam" hmm okay.


Haha yeah PC users give Sony/MS crap because of their service yet Steam seems to have more serious issues than PSN/XBL.

DanielPosted:

So "Nothing ever happens to steam" hmm okay.