"If you have been following Portal 2, you most likely know about the Potato Sack hype the game has recently generated. In case you missed it, Portal 2 enlisted the Steam package named "The Potato Sack" (a collection of 13 indie games) as a type of business partner. The more people that bought and played The Potato Sack games, the sooner Portal 2 would be released. So far the pack has been selling quite well - showing up in the top 3 Steam sellers! Seems like a good deal for both sides right? Indie games get some big-name advertisement and Portal 2 fans get their game a little sooner.
Well, here we are about one full day away from April 19 (the originally scheduled release date) and The Potato Sack "challenge" is reading..."
A LinkedIn post from Underdark AI made the discovery, stating that datasets are being sold for over $5,000 on a known black market forum.
No personal details, mostly account names, no passwords. Likely would need other account leaks to hope that someone reuses a password with a similar account name on another already leaked service. While a lot of users, the data is useless. Kind of notably by the $5k request for the data.
Plus, if you have 2FA enabled, then you were at zero risk anyway, from what I've read, Steam isn't even recommending password changes as it's apparently unnecessary.
@Christopher
Where are you getting that from?
The linked article above says, "The seller claims this is a “fresh” leak and says it includes usernames, passwords, two-factor SMS logs, message contents, metadata, delivery status, and other sensitive details." Which sure sounds like they might have a lot of other information. If this leak is legitimate I better stop hearing people falsely say PSN is the worst secured digital storefront (even though that hasn't been true for a very long time with far larger data breaches since 2011 all over the world including the Equifax breach which was several times larger).
@FinalFantasyFanatic
That seems true only if you use Steam Guard. If you opted for T2A via SMS the article suggests it's time to make the switch to Steam Guard and of course change your password.
From the credit URL: https://x.com/MellowOnline1...
The article doesn't do a good job of going into the updated detail, they just mention part of it.
Just because the seller claims something, doesn't make it true. If it truly contained that data, it would be worth way more than just $5k. SMS systems don't rely on getting passwords for accounts they're sending an SMS to, just the username, phone number, and timestamp info.
Update:
"Valve has now confirmed that “this was NOT a breach of Steam systems” and users do not need to change their passwords as a result. However, it continues to recommend that you set up the Steam Mobile authenticator for extra security."
https://store.steampowered....
The government needs a taskforce with serious fundung that can opporate across borders to go after cyber criminals.
It is getting out of hand and it is the regular citizens of the world that suffer the consequences of these hacks and breaches.
My fear is that if left unchecked, state sponsored hackers from corrupt or governents under sections may use this as a method of raising revenue at the expense of everyone else.
Not in this administration. If anything hes been dissolving existing task forces meant to protect consumers.
Why? They’d just use the funding to funnel hundred of millions of dollars into fake NGOs that then funnel it into democrat pockets while doing zero cyber criminal defence work.
Then if anybody tried to defund them it’d be a whole thing with the mainstream media claiming that there will be endless cyber attacks. NGOs would then fund protest groups to attack anybody that supports defunding the government’s cyber attack defence branch and then it would turn out it was also being used to stabilize or destabilize governments in other countries and overthrow elections to benefit America. Which is fine until they start using it on us again.
Let’s just not. Private companies who know what they’re doing (Valve) can deal with it
RIP USAID. God bless
It's not a may use this not we know state sponsored attacks do this already.
It's a global problem you couldn't have one government playing world police it would require joint collaboration with foreign governments and the problem is many laws have not kept pace with advancement of technology.
even then it's hard to say with certainty if an attack was a state sponsored attacks or a cybercriminal group operating outside of governments
remember when certain groups were saying PC gamers don’t want other subscriptions because it was not safe and steam was the spot lol.
@badz149
@pwnmaster3000
Have you guys actually read what was «leaked»? It was SMS messages from 3rd party provider (not from Steam itself) with one-time 2FA codes (that are active for 15 minutes). No Steam account details, access to an account or any of that jazz.
Let me quote official Steam response:
«The leak consisted of older text messages that included one-time codes that were only valid for 15-minute time frames and the phone numbers they were sent to. The leaked data did not associate the phone numbers with a Steam account, password information, payment information or other personal data. Old text messages cannot 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 will receive a confirmation via email and/or Steam secure messages.»
Source: https://store.steampowered....
The only bad thing about this is the phone numbers. But while that sucks, attacker doesn't know which Steam account this phone number belongs to. IMO, the only thing people should be rioting about is how unprotected the SMS are and the 3rd party service that was used by Steam. I'm all for punishing people who screwed up and/or lacked the security. But this is not it.
Why riot? They have nothing of value, can't even steal an account with the details they have, they would have to attempt a brute force attack, you can already do that with a Steam user's account name (or any account on any site) if you really wanted to spend the time and processing power to do it.
The Creature Collector Fest event has come to steam until May 19. Here are some epic discounted games to scratch the critter gathering itch.
Discover 10 timeless video games from the past that remain absolutely playable today. From Chrono Trigger to DOOM, these classics have aged like fine wine!
Hot damn that's a good list. The only one i never played is AOE2 and i never finshed Chrono Trigger but it was damn good.
Speaking of what's old but holds up amazingly well and plays like a dream.. i played Symphony of the Night for the first time in 2019.. yep that's right. It became one of my favourite games of all time that i replay almost every year. I couldn't believe how good it was. That is almost impossible for me with newer games let alone older ones. Truly a special gem.
The only one I’d disagree with is doom. It shows its age badly I think. After 5 minutes of play these days you put it down.
Well, at least it gives you something to do until portal 2 comes out.
Edit: Also the original release time on steam was tomorrow at around noon. So It's supposedly coming early regardless of what one thought early might be.
I watched Steam over the weekend and none of the top 10 games being played even had anything from the Potato sack in it. It was all the same as any other day...MW2, Blops, CS, TF, L4D2 etc
...Valve needs to be called out over it. I'd expect something like this from Activision or Crapcom, but not Valve.
I feel sorry for people who worked hard on it just to find out it was Valve promoting the indie games.
Look I love Valve, they make amazing games but you got to admit when somebody is in the wrong. I'm sick of seeing people trying to defend them everytime they do something wrong, calling the people who moan ungratful when they shouldn't of made the promises they did.
Oh and the small refrences to the next half life didn't help, it made most people including the people on the HL Episode 2 steam forum think the countdown was linked to new HL info....boy were they pissed when they found out what it really was.
EDIT: Disagree all you want I know I'm right. We got screwed by Valve
AHAHAHAHA
Valve is right up there with Sega when it comes to trolling their fans.
I cancelled my pre-order of Portal 2 as a result of this shenanigan.
I'll pick it off the bargain bin for $10 6 months from now.
Such an over-hyped, over-priced puzzle game.