“Valve’s games-on-demand Steam service has been hacked, the company said Thursday, saying that a database containing private user information has been stolen.
That information includes user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information, according to an email sent by Valve managing director Gabe Newell to Gamasutra.”
Three things:
- What major game service hasn’t been hacked at this point? As far as I know, the only one that stands alone is Xbox Live.
- Why can’t I change my password on the Steam website? I’m at work, and I don’t have Steam installed, so now I have to wait until I get home to change it. That’s a bummer.
- This is why I use 1Password.
The Gawker database hack made me start taking passwords much more seriously. I got an email from Woot.com (I don’t even remember signing up an account, truth be told) telling me my Woot account password was the same as the one leaked from Gawker’s database (I also don’t remember signing up a Gawker account). That those two completely unfamiliar services were sharing, interpreting & matching my personal data was a real wakeup call. You can’t have common passwords anymore; it’s far too risky.
