So my steam account's been hijacked (Account is back!)

[Darren716]

So earlier today I was on tf2outpost (a popular trading site for team fortress 2) and I'm looking at a trade where my offer was declined and see that some one else has told the person who posted the trade to add him on steam and left what looked like a link to his steam account. So out of curiosity I clicked on the link to see if the guy had anything I may want to offer on and was brought to what looked like a normal steam profile page but when I clicked on his inventory I was asked for my steam account and password. I thought that the guy may have had is privacy set so that only steam users could look at his inventory so I put in my account name and password and went on my way. A few minutes later I tried to get on steam where it said I was signed into another computer and after a quick check of my email I saw that my account was now being used by some guy in Russia. I quickly realized what happened the link I clicked on wasn't actually a link to a steam account it was a phishing site that was made to look like a steam account, I instantly felt like an idiot for being fooled so easily. I contacted steam support right away but I am wondering if there is anything I could do to get my account back faster or have it be locked because I have some fairly expensive TF2 items and I don't want to see them get sold off?

EDIT: I have now got my account back and all my items were still intact, thanks to everyone who suggested how to make my account safer in the future I will be following your advice carefully.

 

[Darren716]

sorry to hear you got conned, but i would say those items were probably the first things sold.

i hope steam manages to get you back your account and your items soon

I have been checking my account on tf2outpost and by looking at my unusual's history it seems the guy still has it. Also I created an alt account and checked the steam market and I didn't see my unusual there either so I'm still holding out hope that he hasn't sold it quite yet.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Even if your expensive items get sold, Steam Support is good about returning everything to you.

It can take a while though, might be weeks. It just depends.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Even if your expensive items get sold, Steam Support is good about returning everything to you.

They'll do that for you once. After that they consider it your responsibility.

 

[Darren716]

Even if your expensive items get sold, Steam Support is good about returning everything to you.

They'll do that for you once. After that they consider it your responsibility.

Well from now on I know I'm not checking any link that asks for my steam information 50 times over for even the slightest inaccuracy. This is what I like about Valve they let you learn from your mistakes if get screwed over, I bet if something like this happened on Origin I would have to pay $10 to get my account back and my items would be gone forever.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well from now on I know I'm not checking any link that asks for my steam information 50 times over for even the slightest inaccuracy. This is what I like about Valve they let you learn from your mistakes if get screwed over, I bet if something like this happened on Origin I would have to pay $10 to get my account back and my items would be gone forever.

Origin isn't really any worse than Steam in terms of customer care/kindness.

As this is going to be your one item recovery, I'd go to great lengths to beef up your Steam security heading forward. Change the email associated with it to a new, unique email. Make sure the password is changed to something VERY strong, and use something like KeePass and Anti-Logger to evade keyloggers. Set your account to private. And never, ever, ever give your password and account information to third party sites ever again.

 

[Darren716]

Well from now on I know I'm not checking any link that asks for my steam information 50 times over for even the slightest inaccuracy. This is what I like about Valve they let you learn from your mistakes if get screwed over, I bet if something like this happened on Origin I would have to pay $10 to get my account back and my items would be gone forever.

Origin isn't really any worse than Steam in terms of customer care/kindness.

As this is going to be your one item recovery, I'd go to great lengths to beef up your Steam security heading forward. Change the email associated with it to a new, unique email. Make sure the password is changed to something VERY strong, and use something like KeePass and Anti-Logger to evade keyloggers. Set your account to private. And never, ever, ever give your password and account information to third party sites ever again.

I knew not to give the info to third party sites as I know what phishers try to do since I've been a semi-serious trader in TF2 for about a year and I always hear the horror stories I just never expected they could make something look so much like an actual Valve site. Any ways thanks for the advise my account is definitely getting a security overhaul after all this.

 

[Racecarlock]

And people wonder why I don't use steam and mostly get freeware.

captcha: "The nightman cometh"

S... slenderman?

 

[GoaThief]

Well from now on I know I'm not checking any link that asks for my steam information 50 times over for even the slightest inaccuracy. This is what I like about Valve they let you learn from your mistakes if get screwed over, I bet if something like this happened on Origin I would have to pay $10 to get my account back and my items would be gone forever.

Origin isn't really any worse than Steam in terms of customer care/kindness.

As this is going to be your one item recovery, I'd go to great lengths to beef up your Steam security heading forward. Change the email associated with it to a new, unique email. Make sure the password is changed to something VERY strong, and use something like KeePass and Anti-Logger to evade keyloggers. Set your account to private. And never, ever, ever give your password and account information to third party sites ever again.

I knew not to give the info to third party sites as I know what phishers try to do since I've been a semi-serious trader in TF2 for about a year and I always hear the horror stories I just never expected they could make something look so much like an actual Valve site. Any ways thanks for the advise my account is definitely getting a security overhaul after all this.

Don't forgot to change your passwords if you used it for other accounts, even ones that don't share the same email/ID.

It's surprising how many associated logins you can find with just one ID/email, it's wise not to underestimate these scumbags' resources.

Valve are pretty good at getting accounts back, sorry to hear of your troubles.

 

[MammothBlade]

This is easily avoidable. Check the URL before entering any personal details....

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Make sure if you use the same password for multiple things(like your steam account, your email adress, paypal) that you change them all. First thing im going to do is try your steam password in your email adress if im a hacker, look through your emails for receipts and shit from sites where you buy shit, Oh you have an ebay account huh? Well im going to try your steam password in your ebay account now, see what happens.

 

[BQE]

And people wonder why I don't use steam..-snip-

To be honest this problem has nothing to do with Steam in particular. All sorts of games and even private enterprises such as banking, e-mails, company intranets and everything in between are targeted by these sorts of endeavors.

It's a pretty pervasive problem but the same sorts of 'hygiene' practices apply no matter the context. It would do one to refrain from third-party sites such as these, and shy away from links anywhere. If need to log in to the site, do it from the proper homepage and when it comes to people's links/profiles use your head and avoid links.

It can happen to anyone though, I would hope that the OP gets his items returned to him.

Just remember, in any area of commerce there are always thieves.

 

[Angelous Wang]

There is simple way to avoid pushing scams.

Say you get asked for your Steam ID when you visit a certain site, what you need to do is go to the real Steam homepage (via google or such) and log in there. Once your logged in, refresh the other site.

Now if the the site is still asking you for you login details then it's a scam.

Once you log into the main website any other legit pages will pick up the login from the main site.

Works on pretty much any scam, epically bank detail scams.

 

[DoPo]

Erm, what about the Steam Guard? How did the hijacker go through that? Or did you have it disabled for some reason (which is weird, as I think you need it turned on in order to trade)?

And people wonder why I don't use steam and mostly get freeware.

Because....why? No offence to OP, but that's a pretty easy mistake to guard against.

 

[The Madman]

Why not just turn on Steam Guard? Unless they also have your email account hijacked then just having your steam info is useless to them.

I don't understand why it wouldn't have been on in the first place. It's easy and convenient protection from exactly this sort of stuff.

 

[TheIceQueen]

Why not just turn on Steam Guard? Unless they also have your email account hijacked then just having your steam info is useless to them.

I don't understand why it wouldn't have been on in the first place. It's easy and convenient protection from exactly this sort of stuff.

My thoughts exactly. Honestly, I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't have Steam Guard in the first place. The time for not having it was long since passed, such as when Steam Guard only worked on AMD systems. Steam Guard works no matter what system now and has no limit to the number of computers you can put it on. So, if you have Steam on two computers, it's not too much of a pain to put Steam Guard on the other. Then, if your email you use for steam is a Google email, it's easy to connect your Gmail to a cell phone so that logging in from outside your main computer requires a cell phone call/text, adding in another level of security. Then, so long as you avoid a lot of third-party sites it's really easy to safe guard yourself.

 

[synobal]

Didn't have steam guard on, clicks on a strangers URL, entered your steam account info... Ya man lets call this a learning experience. I hope you get your stuff back. Oh and Welcome to the internet.

 

[Darren716]

Didn't have steam guard on, clicks on a strangers URL, entered your steam account info... Ya man lets call this a learning experience. I hope you get your stuff back. Oh and Welcome to the internet.

I knew about scammers and all that it's just that the phisher did a damn good job of making his site look legit. I've been trading semi-seriously for about a year now so I knew this stuff happened I just happened to let my guard one time and got phished. I thought that steam guard was automatically enabled so I never looked into it. I know now that the first thing I'm doing with my account when I get it back is turning it into Fort Knox.