Valve Adds a New Security Check for Developers on Steam

Recently, a few accounts of developers have been hacked on Steam. The result of accounts being stolen was quite severe, though very little amounts of accounts and profiles were affected by it. The hackers injected malware into the updates, making people actually download those malware-inflicted files instead of updates for their game. This malicious attack was noted by Valve employees and it was canceled to stop the further damages.

The developers were notified with an email, stating their accounts were compromised by hackers and used to exploit the system. Despite being a small attack, Valve now wants to take care of the problem for the upcoming attacks as well. Valve now will ask new developers who are about to publish a game or an update for a two-factor check on Steam. This must be done in order for developers to actually share their updates with the player base.

 

The two-factor authentication will only work via SMS service to keep everything secure. Steam also provides QR code authentication and code authentication through the Steam apps, however, these can end up in the wrong hands so the decision to restrict it to SMS is the best option out there. Although this will force developers to get a phone only for the game, in order to protect their games from malware and viruses, it is a must.

Regular users have the right to disable their two-factor authentication checks if they trust who they are dealing with on Steam or are smart enough to not enter shady websites. However, this measure will not be available to developers who tend to dish out new updates often. Our guesses are that two-factor SMS authentication will not be disabled for developers as its consequences can affect hundreds and thousands of computers.

The new measure to deal with malicious attacks is currently active and if you are a developer, waiting to publish your game on the Steam platform, you must sync your phone number with your Steam partner account.

Atilla Turan (@burningarrow)
Editor, NoobFeed