Steam Boosts Security After Malware Incursion

Valve, the company behind Steam, has ramped up security measures in response to a recent security breach that allowed hackers to infiltrate developers' accounts and inject malware into their public builds. As part of these changes, any Steamworks account authorized to release builds for publicly available applications must now be linked to a phone number, adding an SMS confirmation code step for added security. These measures also apply when an admin account tries to add a new user to the Steamworks partner group.

Furthermore, developers who have relied on steamcmd to set the default branch of a released app have been informed that this will no longer be possible for that purpose, although steamcmd can still be used for uploading builds and preparing beta branches. The security adjustments were triggered by the breach, in which hackers compromised developers' accounts and introduced malware into their public builds. Steam acted swiftly to reverse and remove the compromised builds, but users who downloaded these games during the breach period were advised to run full system scans and take precautions against potential malware infections.

Valve clarified that the affected games were not particularly popular, with fewer than a hundred users impacted. One of the affected games was "NanoWar: Cells VS Virus," according to its developer, Benoît Freslon, on Twitter.