The Steam Cache Issue Thread of Panic

[Tara]

Knowing Steam, we might get a voucher code for 10% a crap game.

You mean a TF2 hat bundle if you pre-order a $5 game?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

You mean a TF2 hat bundle if you pre-order a $5 game?

Yeah, the items of which will only be worth maybe 50p at most on the Community Market.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

So does that mean we should go change passwords and such right now?

[TCB]

I log into Steam through the website...then it looks like I am not logged in. 

I can log in fine through Steam client. With that said, making purchases I think isn't recommended just yet. 

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Oh man, I just made a new account too. D:

Well, hopefully no one got into mine. I'll have to check.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

So does that mean we should go change passwords and such right now?

I don't think so. Passwords aren't displayed on the Account Details page to my knowledge.

[JezMM]

@Peeps talking about reimbursement

Call me forgiving but Steam is a free service.  What exactly is there to reimburse here?

 

If the answer is anything related to trusting Steam to keep your information for your eyes only, I don't see how free games or vouchers or whatever is going to change that.  I'd much rather they simply release a statement outlining what they're going to do to make sure this doesn't happen again, and if it does, how they will be much faster and more communicative about it.

Edited December 25, 2015 by JezMM

[Ryannumber1gamer]

@Peeps talking about reimbursement

Call me forgiving but Steam is a free service.  What exactly is there to reimburse here?

 

If the answer is anything related to trusting Steam to keep your information for your eyes only, I don't see how free games or vouchers or whatever is going to change that.  I'd much rather they simply release a statement outlining what they're going to do to make sure this doesn't happen again, and if it does, how they will be much faster and more communicative about it.

For sending everyone into a panic, giving away email address, and other personal details, and much more. It's a free program sure, but that doesn't change the fact that Steam made a blunder and may have accidentally given random people purchase histories, and personal details.

[JezMM]

For sending everyone into a panic, giving away email address, and other personal details, and much more. It's a free program sure, but that doesn't change the fact that Steam made a blunder and may have accidentally given random people purchase histories, and personal details.

If nothing happened to your account, why do you need a free game?

If something did happen to your account, is a free game really going to cut it as an apology?

[Tara]

I don't think so. Passwords aren't displayed on the Account Details page to my knowledge.

They're not, but it's still a good thing to do after events like these just in case there are other glitches and problems that are not known, which could cause something like this to happen.

@Peeps talking about reimbursement

Call me forgiving but Steam is a free service.  What exactly is there to reimburse here?

 

If the answer is anything related to trusting Steam to keep your information for your eyes only, I don't see how free games or vouchers or whatever is going to change that.  I'd much rather they simply release a statement outlining what they're going to do to make sure this doesn't happen again, and if it does, how they will be much faster and more communicative about it.

People are asking for reimbursement if someone bought something via your Steam Wallet or with the payment information saved in the purchase screen.  It doens't matter if the service is free when real money is involved.

If nothing happened to your account, why do you need a free game?

If something did happen to your account, is a free game really going to cut it as an apology?

That's the joke.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Seeing as how the more important information (credit card, etc.) are not entirely exposed, the situation ended up being much better then whatever horrible disaster could happen on Christmas Day. The thing I'm upset the most about is how lacking in communication Valve is about these kind of things, etc. etc. I don't give a shit if Valve gives zero compensation for this incident (would be nice, but it's valve, I doubt they'd do that in the wake of a freaking winter sale). I want them to make a direct message to users telling them what went wrong and reassure that they'll do everything they can to make it not happen again.

So, would it be safe to just login in on the Steam Client?

SteamDB has reported that the cache issue is fixed. Unless future issues persist, log out, and log back in. You'll be fine. Do not do anything else with your account at this time.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

If nothing happened to your account, why do you need a free game?

If something did happen to your account, is a free game really going to cut it as an apology?

Even if something didn't happen, that potential risk is still there. The same way that back in 2011, when the Sony outage happened, even if you weren't one of the people who was potentially effected, Sony still gave out games as a sign that they are sorry for the entire mess happening in the first place. Quite honestly, I don't care one way or the other if they give us a free game or not, but I totally understand why people are feeling like there should be something. This is quite a serious case, and I know for me personally that it put quite a lot of stress on me because of the fact Valve didn't even bother to say anything about what was happening, and why it was happening. 

[Haalyle]

SteamDB has reported that the cache issue is fixed. Unless future issues persist, log out, and log back in. You'll be fine. Do not do anything else with your account at this time.

Ah, I see. Thanks!

[spinny]

We got an explanation.........about two or three hours after the fact.

Most knew it was an internal problem to begin with anyway, there's just some people who automatically leap at the assumption of hackers whenever there's any sort of a problem like this with any service.

[DiamondX]

Well, i was asleep then. And my steam wallet was empty for a long time. So im okay

[Badnik Mechanic]

Valves response is basically this....

Valve absolutely needs to get one hell of a fine and even some criminal charges over this. This isn't the first time that Steam has had a major security breech, hell I'm still waiting for them to email customers that their passwords were compromised from an incident which occurred back in 2011! This latest blunder is completely on them and it's utterly disgraceful that not only did it happen, but it took them somewhere in the region of 45min to an hour to actually take the service offline in order to fix!

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Well it was Christmas. I don't think anyone was working at Support at the time (they didn't answer my problem with my email being invalid now either).

[Badnik Mechanic]

Well it was Christmas. I don't think anyone was working at Support at the time (they didn't answer my problem with my email being invalid now either).

That's a terrible excuse.

They're one of the largest online retailers for games open 24/7 they need decent staff cover for as long as they're open too.

[Sean]

Getting angry about it is one thing... but asking for a free game is rather silly especially the people demanding for one who were unaffected by the issue

Like Jez, I'd rather Valve explain how they're going to better address this problem in the future than get some game I don't even care about if something much more important (my personal info) was at stake. And if you were unaffected, then you have no right to demand for compensation

[Badnik Mechanic]

And if you were unaffected, then you have no right to demand for compensation

Thankfully 24 hours later Valve has contacted all those who were affected and had their details revealed...

Oh hang on... We don't know if our details were leaked because valve hasn't done a thing to inform customers if their details did get seen.

[Sean]

Are you one of the people asking for a free game, if not then I wasn't referring to you. I already said that people otherwise have a right to be angry

[Badnik Mechanic]

Are you one of the people asking for a free game, if not then I wasn't referring to you. I already said that people otherwise have a right to be angry

No I'm one of those people pointing out that nobody knows if their details got leaked so demanding compensation from Valve isn't that daft an idea since so far Valve is trying to keep silent like they always do when their security fails hoping that everybody else will eventually keep silent or drop the issue.

Maybe if they actually inform customers as to who is affected then people can make more informed decisions.

[Sean]

I'm not disputing that. But I don't think just giving us free games is going to fix anything or even soften the blow. Did people forgive Sony for the hacks when they did that? I think people can be spending their time asking for more important resolves. Especially since I'm not gonna be caring about getting another game when I find out potentially life-destroying personal information is out in the open.

I want Valve to address this issue better but just doing a Sony isn't the way to go.

[Nepenthe]

Unless my shit was actually compromised, which doesn't become any more true simply because Valve isn't talking for God knows what reason, then I don't see why I should get compensation from it. Assuming that I got hit, my compensation should be monetary reimbursement for the damage done on my account, not just some random game I may or may not want, as well as an outlining of what happened and what steps they're taking to protect against such attacks in the future.

[Candescence]

It was only for an hour and I'm pretty sure nobody was able to see anything genuinely compromising (stuff like bank account numbers are heavily redacted and thus essentially useless to anyone who did peek, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have been able to see stuff like passwords). Sure, it's not great, but the most anyone would be able to do with that sort of thing would be to use social engineering, so all you really need is a bit of caution.

Really, it could be a lot worse, and very limited in scope compared to actual breaches that have happened.