Steam down on Christmas Day amid fears of DDoS attack
Steam, the popular online gaming service for PC gamers around the world, was offline for several hours on Christmas Day. The outage followed threats from a hacking collective known as 'SkidNP' that they would take down Steam and Minecraft servers over Christmas.
When attempting to open the Steam client, users were presented with a message detailing that there is an issue connecting to the Steam network:
Reports of the outage began to surface earlier this morning (14:50 GMT / 6:50 PST) and continued to grow in number as more people attempted to connect.
On Reddit there have been numerous complaints of the outage. Community member komentra said:
I really hope it isn't those script kiddies DDOSing Steam. PSN, and XBL again.
At the time of writing, there has been no comment from Valve regarding the outage. While SkidNP has claimed that they would attack Steam on Christmas Day, it is also just as likely that due to it being the festive season, there's a higher than expected number of people signing in and downloading content. As Reddit user Super_Cyan pointed out:
To be honest, it'd be rough figuring out what's an attack and what's just heavy traffic on a day like today.
The client would occasionally display 'connecting to Steam account' for awhile before throwing users back out. Our attempts to connect to Steam earlier today were unsuccessful, but the service is now back online.
Steam Goes Nuts, Offers Access To Other People's Accounts
An apparent malfunction is hitting Steam right now, giving players across the world access to the wallets and buying history of other people’s accounts. It’s not yet clear how this security breach occurred.
Various players across the world are reporting logging into the Steam client and finding that their homepage has changed to Russian or other random languages. When they check the “account info” section of Steam, they find that they have access to another user’s account, complete with e-mail addresses, buying history, and other private information.
Based on some rudimentary testing I’ve done on my own Steam client, it seems like trying to view purchase histories and licenses will switch to other random accounts, too.
We’ve reached out to Valve for more information and will keep updating you guys as we learn more.
Beware Steam and Minecraft gamers, SkidNP is out there to bring the servers down
SkidNP : The hacking group that has promised to bring down Minecraft and Steam gaming servers during Christmas holidays
Meet SkidNP the latest gang of hackers to seeking join the esteemed ranks of hacking groups like Syrian Electronic Army, CyberBerkut and infamous ones like Lizard Squad. SkidNP is the latest entrant in the hacking arena and their first deed as hackers was to announce that they will bring down Steam and Minecraft gamings servers during the Christmas holidays.
With Christmas just two days far, we caught up with SkidNP’s member who goes by the name of K and asked him what SkidNP’s goals were. Here is the full interview :
TW : Who are you guys and what is the aim of SkidNP?
K (@Obstructable) : The leaders are me and @Stazexor we aim to break “Skids” Like @PhantomSeccand stop them from taking other peoples credits. we attack services to make them know what attacks are like so they can fix them
TW : What are your targets for Christmas holidays?
K : Minecraft and Steam. Steam will be a hard target as they are smart unlike Mojang, Xbox and PlayStation.
TW : No PSN Network and Xbox Live?
K : I think @LizardLands will be attacking xbox and PSN enough.
One of the exploits of SkidNP is that they hacked Phantom Squad’s website. Phantom Squad have promised that they will DDoS PlayStation Networks and Xbox gaming servers during the Christmas holidays. SkidNP considers Phantom Squad as skids, a Internet slang for script kids. Here is why?
TW : Why do you think @PhantomSec are skids?
K : They use a old attack method “PMA” this is a method from around 2013 that is bad
TW : And you will be using?
K : We will be using a botnet and a few dedicated servers.
SkidNP fulfill their promise, bring down Steam servers, read hereto know more.
TW : Arent you worried about the backlash from Minecraft and Steam gamers? Lizard Squad was harangued by them for last years attacks..
K : Well not really as all they will be doing is giving us more publicity. Making videos and tweets about how outraged they are about us.
TW : You are connected in anyways to Lizards?
K : We are not
TW : Next years targets if any?
K : We will be attacking Minecraft & Steam again, and maybe a few more as we do not know yet as its a year away
TW : And what time will the Minecraft and Steam attack start?
K : Around 1AM 25Th
TW : Any message to the young wannabe hackers?
K : Watch out.. we’re coming for you
K signed off with a ominous warning to tech companies which provide poor service to users and have very poor security. He said that they want to bring down such services to alert the tech companies about their vulnerabilities so that they can prepare for the same.
It remains to be seen whether SkidNP is successful in bringing down the Minecraft and Steam servers on the 25th December. But, taking them lightly could cost serious loss as Sony and Microsoft realised last year when they preferred to disregard Lizard Squad’s promise of disrupting Xbox Live and PlayStation Network servers during the Christmas holidays.
What happened during those holidays to both the gaming servers is known to all.
By the way, all accounts I had seen had "Steam Guard" turned off. I would like to see my own account, but alas...
Good. Probably doesn't matter at this point, anyway.By the way, all accounts I had seen had "Steam Guard" turned off. I would like to see my own account, but alas...
I'm looking at one right now that has it enabled. I don't think that has anything to do with this.
By the way, all accounts I had seen had "Steam Guard" turned off. I would like to see my own account, but alas...
I've alerted a few people (read; everyone)!
/Edit: They are working on it as we speak
Same here. Looking at someone else's account that has Steam Guard email turned on.By the way, all accounts I had seen had "Steam Guard" turned off. I would like to see my own account, but alas...
I'm looking at one right now that has it enabled. I don't think that has anything to do with this.