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How to Secure Your Steam Account in 2023

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Gamers mistakenly consider themselves safe online because why would hackers target gamers, right? In reality, gaming accounts can be worth thousands of dollars, with the highest-level Steam account worth more than $240K.

An average Steam account is worth nearly $2,000 with 120 game purchases and various in-game goods. Needless to say, this attracts cybercriminals that use various scams to obtain credentials and then change their email and password to complicate the recovery process.

Luckily, you can protect your Steam account from unauthorized access in several ways, which we outline in this article. However, feel free to dive deeper into the topic of general cybersecurity for gamers and enhance your understanding.

How to Activate Steam Guard

On this platform, two-factor authentication (2FA) is one of the most efficient online account protection methods, called Steam Guard. It allows activating a secondary verification step if Steam notices a login attempt from an unauthorized device.

Even if cybercriminals manage to obtain your credentials, the second verification step will deny access. Here’s how to activate it on Steam:

  1. Open the app and click on Steam in the top left corner navbar;
  2. Click Settings -> Manage Steam Guard account security;
  3. Choose “Get Steam Guard codes by email”;
  4. Re-login using the code Steam sent you to your email.

Steam provides two 2FA options. Although email authentication is secure enough if you really want to buff up your game, use its Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.

  1. Install Steam on your smartphone;
  2. Log in with your credentials;
  3. Tap on three lines in the lower right -> select Steam Guard;
  4. Add a phone number if you haven’t done so yet;
  5. Confirm the operation with a Steam code in your email;
  6. Write down the recovery code (important!);
  7. Now Steam will ask for authentication codes from your mobile Steam Guard.

Use a Strong Steam Password

The first line of every online defense is a strong password. Even if you set up an email 2FA authentication, hackers will break it if you use the same easy-to-guess password on both.

The number one go-to password protection software is a password manager. This neat tool stores all your different passwords in an encrypted vault, accessible through one master password. This way, you don’t have to remember any of them by heart and won’t have to reuse the same one twice.

Furthermore, fully-developed password managers provide an autofill function, so you don’t have to type passwords manually. It neutralizes keylogger spyware and significantly improves user comfort.

Remember that professional password managers also offer two-factor authentication. If you enable it on both Steam and your password manager, breaking your defenses is nearly impossible.

Log Out Third-party Devices

There’s a cool Steam feature if you logged in to Steam on your friend’s account (or anywhere else) and forgot to log out. You can also use it if you suspect your account has been hacked and someone accessed it.

  1. Go to Steam settings;
  2. Click on Manage Steam Guard account security;
  3. Click on Deauthorize all devices at the very bottom.

It will log out of every device that uses your Steam account except the one you’re on.

Additional Security Steps

Maybe Valve will never offer a Half-life 3, but they do offer numerous privacy settings. This time you need to click on your profile -> View my profile -> Edit Profile -> Privacy Settings. You can modify who can view your game and inventory details and comment on your profile. Remember that if your Steam account holds much value, limiting who can see it decreases the chance of being noticed by a hacker.

It would be best to be mindful of various backlinks people leave on forums, game rooms, or private messages. At the end of last year, cybercriminals developed a new Browser-in-the-Browser hacking method. It invites gamers to LoL, Dota 2, CS, or other tournaments via a backlink, which looks like a legitimate Steam pop-up. Unsuspecting gamers input their credentials which are immediately transferred to the criminals’ hands.

Lastly, you can download Steam saves from the Steam Cloud to ensure you don’t lose game progress if the worst-case scenario happens. Instead of keeping them on your device, which could also be targeted by various malware, upload them to third-party Cloud storage. 

Nowadays, Cloud storage service providers ensure advanced encryption protects their servers from data leaks and guarantees data backups in case of physical server failure. Having your saves on Steam and third-party Clouds significantly decreases the chance of losing valuable information.

Bottom Line

Your Steam account should be as safe as it gets if you implement the discussed steps. Always remember that cybercriminals are looking for profit everywhere, even if it’s a few hundred bucks; getting hacked causes huge discomfort!

TXH
TXH
TXH loves nothing more than kicking back at the end of the day, controller in hand, shooting the hell out of strangers via Xbox Live.

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