Steam Account Security and Prevention

In recent months, there has been an increase in the number of email and Steam account hacks aimed at stealing items from Steam inventory. This article contains tips on protecting your account.

Hacking Methods

There are two popular ways to hack accounts:

1. Brute Force (password guessing)
2. Stealer Worm (stealing saved passwords)

Protection Against Brute Force

Brute force is a special program that, through proxy servers, tries passwords for your email or Steam account. As soon as a password matches, the program reports to its owner the password that worked. Accordingly, an attacker can gain access to virtually everything linked to your email.

How to Protect Against Brute Force

1. Make your password as long as possible. The shortest password should be at least 21 characters. It will take brute force several years to guess such a password.

2. Enable Steam Guard. This is two-factor authentication that significantly increases the security of your account.

3. Never tell your email address to strangers.

4. Use Google mail with phone binding. This adds an additional layer of protection.

5. Never share your login with anyone.

Protection Against Stealer Worms

A stealer worm is a small program that exists on your computer and periodically invisibly checks your browsers for saved passwords. Everything it finds is sent to its owner. It is almost impossible to get rid of such a thing yourself.

Types of Stealers

• Simple stealer — gets into your computer once, sends what it finds, then self-destructs. Visible to almost all antiviruses.

• Maximum stealth stealer — worm “settles” on the hard drive. Not all antiviruses detect them. Easy to remove if detected. Hardest to detect.

• Immortal stealer — this is a stealer that settles in your computer’s BIOS. It is almost impossible to remove at home. Even if you delete everything (including BIOS) — this is not a guarantee of complete stealer destruction. Fortunately, such stealers are rare, and if you find one, a professional hacker is likely at work.

How Stealers Get on Your Computer

Most often, such stealers get on your computer through various files. For example, in email spam.

How to identify a dangerous email:

1. They address you in a language other than yours
2. Unknown sender + unknown origin of the email
3. They promise money, other free things, for example, a crate opener

Important: A virus can also be caught from an image or even a music track. File-sharing sites are full of such things, be careful.

Never open such emails and the files they contain.

How to Protect Against Stealers

1. Install an antivirus, for example: NOD32 or Norton. We strongly do not recommend free Avast or Doctor Web.

2. Never accept files from strangers.

3. Stay away from suspicious emails.

4. Don’t visit unknown websites.

Additional Recommendations

• Regularly scan your computer with antivirus
• Update your operating system and browsers
• Use unique passwords for different services
• Don’t save passwords in the browser for critically important accounts
• Regularly check activity in Steam and email