Although the Steam service uses fairly reliable protection against hacking and password theft, users often and by their own stupidity lose their accounts. As a result, they do not know what to do if they hacked Steam. Let's get it right.
How serious is this problem?
Instructions and video tips on hacking Steam service accounts are on the Internet. However, there is nothing catastrophic here. Of course, it’s unpleasant if an attacker gains access to your games and profile. After all, you paid money for them, and someone can now use it for free (here’s a good argument for downloading games from torrents). However, you will not lose anything but time. So the problem with account theft is not so serious.
How does this happen
So that you can determine the theft in time and understand what to do if you hacked Steam, you need to understand how attackers work.
Most often, theft occurs through e-mail. That is, it is not the Steam account that is being hacked, but your email inbox. If someone knows access to your e-mail, and at the same time you use one of the standard passwords, which is easy to pick up, then hacking the box is easy. After that, the attacker just needs to click on "I forgot the password" when authorizing on Steam, and the new password will be sent to the e-mail, access to which is already there.
Some users first notice the theft of the e-mail box and only then guess about the possible theft of the account in Steam. Moreover, any other accounts on different services that are tied to email can also be stolen. Also, after receiving the password for the electronic mail box, thieves usually immediately change the password for them. Let's say they hacked Steam and mail. What to do in this case? Recover access. This will be discussed below, but for now it’s important to know how to prevent this from happening in the future.
How to prevent hacking
There are various ways to steal data to email. One of the most popular is phishing. Attackers lure the user to some left site, where you need to enter your email profile or Steam access. The user enters data and, in fact, simply gives it to the attacker. Therefore, you should be vigilant and not enter data to your accounts on phishing sites. They are usually tried to make them look like official Steam resources.
Many users are being promoted to the promised free games or some bonuses on the Steam system that are promised on these phishing sites. Sometimes players are asked to vote, but for this, they also offer to enter an e-mail and password. Do not fall for such offers.
Rare tricks are rare when an attacker simply asks the user to provide him with information to access the account, pretending to be an existing friend.
What to do in case of hacking
So what to do if they hacked Steam? First of all, you need to stop the panic. Nothing bad happened. If you can’t access your account, you don’t need to immediately click on the “Forgot password” button, because in this case the thief will immediately understand that you noticed the theft and are trying to restore access. First check your mail. Let's say they hacked Steam and changed the mail. What to do in this case? We strongly recommend not to wait for mail recovery, but to immediately write letters to support services. Otherwise, the case will drag on.
If the password for the mail was restored, then you should definitely check it for signs of crime. For example, in the mail there may be letters about a "forgotten" password that you did not request. There will also be a notification of the change of e-mail and even the thief's IP address.
If this succeeds (and it is usually possible to restore access to e-mail in 90% of cases), then immediately contact Steam support. However, in no case do not try to get in touch with the cracker. Just provide support information. This is the best thing you can do when you don’t know what to do if you hacked Steam.
How to contact customer support?
To contact Steam, you will need a separate account. Go to the official support site and click on the "Help, I can’t log into my account" button. Next, you need to follow the instructions that appear depending on your answers.
We register for a more reliable e-mail - technical support answers will come to it. We proceed to the appeal form and fill it out. We indicate in the menu "Stolen account" and fill out as much as possible everything that happened to you. You can write in Russian. Employees of the service perfectly understand it and support Russian-speaking users.
Describe the problem without emotions, using simple sentences. The simpler and clearer you get the message across, the faster the support will respond and help. Describe in detail the details of the hack. If possible, you can attach screenshots from your mail, where notifications about the change of password and mailbox came. Ideally, you must provide the cracker's ip address. This information is in your history of received letters.
After submitting the form, you just have to wait for the support response. It will detail what to do if the Steam has been hacked.
Conclusion
And once again it is worth paying attention to the fact that the Steam account itself is not of great value. And the kidnapper cannot cause you serious losses. You just lose some time to restore it and nothing more. So stop the panic and act. Fortunately, now you know what to do if a Steam account has been hacked.