Valve Adds New Examination For Game Developers On Steam

Steam added a new security check, after hackers had previously discovered an infiltrating Steam account from several game developers and updating their game with malware.

The account of game developer Steam was recently compromised and used to update their game to spread malware. As a result, less than 100 Steam users have installed the game.

Although efforts to use Steam to distribute malware are not very effective, Valve has taken major steps to prevent this from happening again.

Starting October 24, game developers will be asked to pass a two-factor authentication check before updating the game Steam will send automatically in automatic updates to most of the players who installed it.

SMS text messages will be the only way to receive the two-factor code, so Steam partners must register a mobile phone number for use whenever they want to update the major release version of their game.

For developers who don't have cell phones, Valve's post about the change says "sorry", but they will "take a call or a way to receive text messages" if they wish to continue updating their game.

Valve told PC Gamers that "extra friction" for these partners is "a necessary sacrifice to keep Steam users and developers safe aware of the potential compromise on their accounts."

The recent incident was not the only attempt to gain unauthorized access to Steam's partner account: Valve said it had seen an "enhanced state-of-the-art attack" targeting the developer's account that released the game on Steam.

Steam partners also need to use SMS verification to add new users to their group, and Valve said they plan to add two-factor security checks to Steam's other backend actions in the future.