Valve confirms nobody hacked Steam, over 89 million Steam accounts and passwords are safe

Valve says leaks of a purported breach of Steam systems did NOT happen, and that over 89 million Steam accounts and passwords are safe.

Valve confirms nobody hacked Steam, over 89 million Steam accounts and passwords are safe
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TL;DR: Valve confirmed recent leaked older Steam SMS messages were not due to a Steam system breach. The leak involved unencrypted, time-limited codes and phone numbers without linking to accounts or sensitive data. Users are advised to remain cautious, enable Steam Mobile Authenticator, and monitor account security notifications.

There has been a flurry of reports of leaked older text messages that were previously sent to Steam users, with Valve writing a news post explaining that the company has examined the leak sample and determined "this was NOT a breach of Steam systems".

Valve says it is still digging into the source of the leak, which was "compounded by the fact that any SMS messages are unencrypted in transit, and routed through multiple providers on the way to your phone". The Half-Life developer says that the leak included old text messages that included one-time codes that were only valid for 15-minute time frames, and the exact phone numbers they were sent to.

Valve says that the leaked data "did not associate the phone numbers with a Steam account, password information, payment information or other personal data". Old text messages can't be used to breach the security of your Steam account, and whenever a code is used to change your Steam email or password using SMS, you'll receive a confirmation through e-mail and/or Steam secure messages, says Valve.

There is no need to change your passwords or phone numbers, with Valve adding that "it is a good reminder to treat any account security messages that you have not explicitly requested as suspicious". Valve also recommends setting up the Steam Mobile Authenticator if you haven't already, as it gives Valve "the best way to send secure messages about your account and your account's safety".

The original report was discovered a few days ago by LinkedIn user "Underdark.ai" and picked up by X user "Mellow_Online1" today. The original post on LinkedIn said that a dark web forum user claimed to have a data set of over 89 million Steam accounts that they were selling for around $5000, with the dark web user saying they had "sample data" as proof, and a number on Telegram that someone could call if they were interested in the Steam accounts.