Nobody is safe!

[Hellravager]

Damn hackers, now i gotta worry about steam infecting my computer... well damnit >.> wall of text inc


http://steamed.kotaku.com/warning-sc...+nathangrayson

Be careful what you click. You might think you've found a cool-looking new game on Steam, but it could be computer-infesting malware in disguise. Yeah, scammers are imitating entire game pages now.

Over the weekend, the makers of psychedelic adventure game Octopus City Blues were surprised to discover a perfect copy of their Steam page (warning: the "demo" download on that page contains malware) sitting in the "concepts" section of Steam. Name, trailer, screenshots, description—everything. There was, however, one big difference between the eight-legged clone and developer Ghost In A Bottle's original slab of steamed cephalopod: updates that advertised an exciting new demo. Seven levels! An hour of playtime! They even mentioned the game's very not-fictional Kickstarter. Clearly, these jerks did their homework.

Clicking the link, obviously, is a terrible idea. It goes to a malware-ridden download site. As soon as Ghost In A Bottle caught wind of this, they reported it to Valve and asked their fans to do the same. Days later, however, the page is still up, as is the extremely deceptive malware link. Nothing has changed.

"I reported the page and mentioned that I'm the creator of the original Greenlight page, and asked fans to report it as well, but it's still up as you can see," Octopus City Blues designer Firas Assaad told me via email. "There were a few comments on the fake page warning people, but it seems that they were deleted. If it stays up I might send a DMCA complaint since companies take them more seriously."

This is not the only instance of this occurring recently, either. The makers of beat-'em-up Street Fist 2 have reported similar troubles.

Meanwhile, the creator of the fake Octopus City Blues page has one other game listed in Steam's concepts section. This one is an illicit copy (warning: do not click the public beta download on that page) of RPG Garlock Online's page, and it advertises a public beta that, predictably, leads to a malware link. That one appears to have been up in various forms since late-March.

So yeah, be careful. It seems like people are out to take advantage of the fact that Valve isn't doing much about this type of scam yet. I've requested comment from Valve, but as of publishing time they hadn't replied. Here's hoping they squash this scam faster than they've squashed, er, all the others, though.

Update 1: A similar incident occurred last month with multiple Steam Greenlight (as opposed to Steam Concepts) entries. Valve's community moderators handled that problem after Valve caught wind of the issue. Here's hoping the same happens here, sooner rather than later. Clearly, though, a long-term solution is needed.

Update 2 (6:45 PM): Valve sent me the following message: "We have removed the malicious links and taking further steps to deal with anyone involved with posting these links."

[breadisfunny]

well this is troubling news.

[Deleted]

Good thing I don't play random garbage from Steam, which is pretty much everything over there.

Still, I occasionally get mails saying someone from a location in China has attempted to log into my Steam account. The email is genuine. I check my computer with several antiviruses for keyloggers...Nothing. I change the password...nope, still get the email. Format hdd in hopes to get rid of whatever super magical keylogger I have that no antivirus can find. Nope, still getting emails.

By this point I figure it must be some false positive with their servers fucking up. Why does it say it's someone from China, though?

[Thelxi]

I haven't been "hacked" or had a virus since I was a teenager looking at internet explorer porn on my mother's desktop.

[Deleted]

I haven't been "hacked" or had a virus since I was a teenager looking at internet explorer porn on my mother's desktop.

Same. Only time I ever got hacked was 10 years ago when visited a gold selling website. Didn't buy any gold because you could only use PayPal and the service was not available in my country at that time, but I still got a keylogger from it.

[stellvia]

Good thing I don't play random garbage from Steam, which is pretty much everything over there.

Still, I occasionally get mails saying someone from a location in China has attempted to log into my Steam account. The email is genuine. I check my computer with several antiviruses for keyloggers...Nothing. I change the password...nope, still get the email. Format hdd in hopes to get rid of whatever super magical keylogger I have that no antivirus can find. Nope, still getting emails.

By this point I figure it must be some false positive with their servers fucking up. Why does it say it's someone from China, though?

That means they know your account login, but not the password and keep failing. It's probably just some list that gets circulated over there, or they just try everything on the list every so often.

And yes, I also have gotten maybe 1 or 2 pieces of malware since ever. Common sense is your best defense, followed by Adblock and then Noscript

[Wayne25uk]

I blame lizard squad,dunno why i just want to.

[Nihilan]

I dont get hacked because my password: ponieS is both secure and totally impossible for anyone to figure out.

[Pony Soldier]

Good thing I buy my games in physical form. This is the kind of stuff that deters me from buying games digitally. People think it's the future and sure it's more convenient but it also opens up ways for all kinds of problems to happen, like this.