Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

Good God. It's gorgeous. The voice-over and scenery is a completely convincing set-up, transporting the viewer to a Southern California consumer utopia of fast cars and lush golf courses. But, this being GTA, there are dark undertones of a murky past, a disturbing future and a present gone horribly wrong. This is a world of home repossessions, environmental pollution, drug-deals and poverty. This is the world we recognize; the Californian dream in all its 21st Century perversions and contradictions. Do I want to explore this world, and the dangers within? You bet.

Colin Campbell, Head of News and Features