Steam Christmas Screw-up

H

Heliocentrical

Well-known member
On Christmas Day Steam had a caching issue and displayed random user accounts when you attempt to login to your steam client. This would then reveal personal information of said account. Valve has addressed this caching issue and Steam is back to normal. However this is a large security hiccup on their part and they are the largest digital distributor of video games. Has anyone been having issues with their steam account?

Tom Scott's video on Steam's caching issue.


 
I haven't had any problems so far but I'm a paranoid person. There could have been any change and I wouldn't know about it.

 
I didn't get any of those cached pages from other people, but yeah, I experienced that the shop was down.

Its not a security risk in a direct way that, somebody could have edited your account, transfer items, send game gifts etc., BUT there were reported cases of people seeing steam store check out pages (with items in it) and than you could see there full name, e-mail adress, billing adress, and for people using paypal - paypal e-mail adress. This is quite a bit of information - billing adress could be using for all kinds of harassment, spam (also, this could help people getting lost passwords if there is a requirement for adress input). Paypal e-mail adress could become a prime target to try to steal that e-mail password. E-mail with nothing associated with it is no use to people, but an e-mail associated with forums, paypal etc. can be used to retrieve "lost passwords" and than deal more damage.

 
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