The community and game provider Steam is known not only for its selection of games, but known for its means of getting gamers together quickly and easily. Various outlets have reported that the message boards had a message from fkn0wned and spam was sent out to users a few days ago. The forums remain down for investigation.
The message board showed a message, which has since been removed, from the website fkn0wned, which discusses and documents videogame hacks of all kinds, general discussion, and security in general. Users registered for the forum got similar messages in their email inbox, meaning the ones who got in were able to get the full list of emails of users.
The forums as of now show a message that they are down for maintenance. Hopefully this can get resolved and not turn into a massive stink like the PSN hacking did.
You don’t have to worry about your password security too much, as VBulletin heavily encrypts password data, and that is the engine Steam uses for its forums, probably on purpose. However if your Steam Forums password is the same as your Steam password, changing the Steam password would be recommended just in case, you can never be too careful.
Before anyone think they can cheat and get away with it, Valve’s anti-cheat systems are far smarter than some script-kiddie n00b who thinks his hack is undetectable. As a rule, if you trip VAC, it will smack you about somewhere down the line just when you think you’re safe.
This security breach was likely caused by a moderator or admin having an easy-to-guess password, a keylogger, or outright maliciousness on their part. Once again it’s very unlikely passwords were compromised. The administrator of fkn0wned has made no comment on responsibility however.
Rian Quenlin
The worst part about these stories is that you never hear how it happened in any detail, I’d love to know who had their password as qwertyuiop.
Still, I laugh at them thinking their hacks are undetectable. Here’s a hint; they aren’t, when VAC catches you, it wont do anything for a while. Once it does, it will ban you permanently after review to maximize evidence on just how much you’ve been dicking about. They’re just script kiddies.