steam-guard posts

Launched as a beta a couple of weeks ago, Valve has now officially launched its Steam Guard feature for all users of its Steam PC game download client. As we have reported before, this new feature is designed to give users of Steam an extra level of protection against their account, and all of the account's games, from being stolen or used by others.

When activated by the user, Steam Guard will sent out a special access code to your Steam contact email address if it shows that someone is attempting to access your Steam account on an unfamiliar PC. That one time code must be entered before Steam will allow access on that PC.

As we mentioned earlier today, Steam users can now try out the Steam Guard password security feature in beta form. But just how effective is this new tool to protecting your Steam account info? At the PC hardware trade show CeBIT in Germany today, Valve founder Gabe Newell took a nod from LifeLock's CEO and put his own Steam email address and password on a big screen in front of a live audience. (It's username gaben@valvesoftware.com, password MoolyFTW, in case you can't read it from the image above)

Naturally someone was filming this bit and posted a video with Newell's Steam login info to YouTube (you can check it out after the break). We suspect that's perhaps not the only Steam account Newell has (he is the boss after all) but he did tell the CeBit audience, "You can try to log in and attempt to steal my account if you can, but you can't." Okay. We think some people might try to do just that.

[Via Joystiq]

Announced earlier this week, the new Steam Guard security feature for users of Valve's Steam game download client is now available for any Steam user to check out in beta form. In order to access the beta of Steam Guard you must launch the Steam client, head to the Accounts tab in Settings and then change your beta participation status to "Steam Update."

With Steam Guard enabled, anyone who tries to log into your Steam account from an unrecognized PC will have to go through an addition level of authentication. An email sent to the user's contact email address will be sent with a special code that must be typed into Steam before you can access the Steam account. You will also be able to know if there's been anyone who has tried to access your account unsuccessfully.

As we reported earlier this week, Steam Guard will also make use of the upcoming Identity Protection Technology feature that's a part of Intel's new second generation Core PC processor.

Steam is without a doubt the most popular of all the PC game download services and part of the reason is that folks can download the client software and use it on any PC. But what if for security purposes you wanted to just have your Steam account work on just one PC? That's where the newly announced Steam Guard feature comes in.

Valve has just announced the new feature for Steam and the Steamworks tools that will let Steam users only allow one PC to have access to his or her Steam account and all the games on that account. Steam Guard will also allow users to see if any third parties try to log in or change settings in their Steam annount from outside PCs.

Steam Guard will also work with a new feature in Intel's second generation Core PC processors, the Identity Protection Technology. It's a hardware-based feature that generates a new password every 30 seconds. Valve's Gabe Newell is quoted in the press release as saying, "Account phishing and hijacking are our (number one) support issues. With Intel's IPT and Steam Guard, we've taken a big step towards giving customers the account security they need as they purchase more and more digital goods." There's no word on exactly when Steam Guard will be made available for Steam owners.

[Via email press release]