Valve has revealed that hackers have gained access to the Steam database and have pulled countless user names, passwords and other information.
Earlier this week many noticed that the Steam forums were experiencing issues and were later taken down. It turns out that the damage incurred by hackers was more widespread than was originally anticipated.
At first it seemed like just the forums were defaced and as such were quickly out of commission but as Valve investigated, it turned out that a database full of user names, passwords and other information was hacked. As such, the items contained on this database could now be making its way over the usual underground channels.
According to Valve credit card information should still be safe but they are not ruling out the possibility that it too was hacked.
We’ll continue monitoring the situation but until then, below is the full email from Gabe Newell to Steam members.