Valve launches Steam Guard

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 17 March, 2011

Do a Gabe and tell us your password.

Portal 2 maker Valve has officially launched Steam Guard.

Steam Guard, which had been in beta, blocks any attempt to access a protected account from an unrecognised computer and is designed to add a layer of protection to your games.

It works by sending a verification email to the your registered email address that must be actioned should a computer attempt access.

Steam Guard is so secure, Valve boss Gabe Newell confidently shared his Steam password to a crowd at the Game Developers Conference.

There's more information over at Valve's Steam Guard FAQ.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • linksdad #1 1 year ago

    "Steam Guard is so secure, Valve boss Gabe Newell confidently shared his Steam password to a crowd at the Game Developers Conference."

    I thought it was already in the public domain!

  • Eraysor #2 1 year ago

    I would love for them to implement a security system similar to the Battle.net authenticator. I have it on my iPod and it works flawlessly.

  • M4RV #3 1 year ago

    Tested previously while it was on beta stages... Great addition IMO. :)

  • bad09 #4 1 year ago

    Nice addition but I'm more interested in when that big screen mode hit Steam? My pet peeve with Steam (apart from it's touchy offline mode!) is having to grab my mouse everytime I want to change game, doing it all from the controller is a lazy bastards dream come true!

  • AbracadaverAK #5 1 year ago

    You don't need a "2nd generation Intel CoreT and Intel CoreT vProT processor". I have an AMD processor, and Steam Guard is working fine.

    See: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_arti...

  • Gun-Nut #6 1 year ago

    First up I did not really like the Battle.net Authenticator on iPod I mean it worked fine till my iPod had to be restored all I did was turn it off and it wanted to reinstall everything so I had to go through talking to Blizzard to get my account back >.<

    Finally the Steam Support Knowledge Base says.

    "Does Steam Guard take advantage of the Intel® Identity Protection Technology solution that Valve and Intel recently announced?

    No, not in the current release. We hope to offer additional forms of authentication soon though, so you'll have your choice of secondary authentication methods with Steam Guard."

    So I imagine it should work for all since IIPT is not even active yet.

  • arcam #7 1 year ago

    Getting more and more important now.

    Aside from my house and my train season ticket, my Steam account is probably the most valuable thing I own. That's pretty amazing/worrying/tragic when I think about it...

  • Doctor_What #8 1 year ago

    Ooo, he's asking for trouble... Which I think is awesome :)

  • ChthonicEcho #9 1 year ago

    It works by sending a verification email to the your registered email address that must be actioned should a computer attempt access.

    So, instead of trying to steal your Steam account password, those account-stealing cunts now have to steal your e-mail account password, instead? Why link to hardware if you can still access Steam from another computer through an e-mail? Hardly seems like a step up, but I may be missing something.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #10 1 year ago

    Thats a shame cos i activley play on 2 different machines depending on where i am.

  • Ignatius_Cheese #11 1 year ago

    FYI, his password (for all things) is "Freeman123"

  • GiarcYekrub #12 1 year ago

    Is there a need for this? I've not used steam since I completed Episode 2 and now my PC is buggered(from old age)
    Edited by GiarcYekrub at 17/03/11 @ 10:21

  • DDevil #13 1 year ago

    For the record his password is "Ilovecak3"

  • Spekingur #14 1 year ago

    How about setting up something like dropbox or logmein have? (Cloud based solutions.)
    You assign access to your account to one or several computers, each of which must be verified. Having the account locked to just one computer seems... limited.

  • asphaltcowboy #15 1 year ago

    @GamesProgrammer - Don't switch it on then?

  • StooMonster #16 1 year ago

    Isn't it only account management that is linked to one computer, rather than ability to play Steam games?

  • TheApologist #17 1 year ago

    @gamesprogrammer you can verify as many machines as you want so it's not a problem to play across a pc and laptop with one account :)

  • cen4pgb #18 1 year ago

    @Spekinger Its not locked to one PC. It wont be when they fully impliment it. You can veryfy more than one PC, and if you try and use it on one that you havent veryfied then you can access it by using a single use password.

  • Raconteur #19 1 year ago

    @Ignatious_Cheese 'FYI, his password (for all things) is "Freeman123" '

    ROFL - does it report it as a 'Strong password'

  • wyp100 #20 1 year ago

    You guys are absolutely right. Made a few changes to reflect.

  • PearOfAnguish #21 1 year ago

    Is there a need for this? I've not used steam since I completed Episode 2 and now my PC is buggered(from old age)

    Quick, somebody call Valve. They need to disable this extra security pronto because some guy on Eurogamer doesn't use Steam anymore. Don't worry about those millions of other people who do use it on a daily basis, they're not important. Probably best just to shut down the entire thing, because really, what's the point?
    Edited by PearOfAnguish at 17/03/11 @ 11:31

  • bdc #22 1 year ago

    gaben

  • Caimbeul #23 1 year ago

    So does this mean Steam is locked to one computer if you activate it? and secondly - do you get a choice? (assuming you have the relevant processor?)

    I use steam on 4 PC's at home my wife sometimes on the laptop and me on the main machine or any one of a different set of combinations and would certainly not want to be only limited to one.

  • Spekingur #24 1 year ago

    @cen4pgb: That's good then.

  • Toothball #25 1 year ago

    @Caimbeul

    It should work on any computers you verify on. All you need is access to your email. I just tried it at work and it seemed straightforward enough.

  • Caimbeul #26 1 year ago

    Thanks toothball

  • Er-El #27 1 year ago

    Anyone wanna give out their login details here?

  • SAMagic #28 1 year ago

    Is it me or does everyone seem to have the password "********"?

  • azix2 #29 1 year ago

    Funny, if you use your email password for your steam password....

    What is stopping them getting email access as well? secure my arse

  • Gnoupi #30 1 year ago

    Funny, if you use your email password for your steam password....
    What is stopping them getting email access as well? secure my arse

    If you are careless (to be polite) enough to use your main email account's password with anything else, I guess no help can be given, indeed.

  • azix2 #31 1 year ago

    A hell of a lot of people would do that. Who has a different password for everything? You would expect steam to be up there in terms of security as is your email provider

  • PearOfAnguish #32 1 year ago

    Then a hell of a lot of people are stupid.

    There are numerous password managers and other ways of keeping track of unique passwords so there's no excuse. If you're dumb enough to use the same password for everything then it isn't Steam's fault if your accounts get hacked.

    This is an extra layer of protection to ensure your account isn't hijacked but the end user has to take ultimate responsibility.

  • FooAtari #33 1 year ago

    @azix2

    A hell of a lot of people would do that. Who has a different password for everything?

    Me. I used to use two different passwords, one for important stuff and one for less important stuff like forums. Until lifeacker got hacked, and I realized how much stuff could be potentially accessed with getting one of my password for just one site. Sure, in this case it would only be forums and things, but still that would be a pain in the arse.

    So I now use two base passwords, but I came up with a very easy way of having a unique password, based on those to passwords, for each site/service that is easy to remember.

    A hell of a lot of people would do that.

    Well yeah, a hell of a lot people are stupid/ignorant/careless when it comes to protecting themselves online. I think most people don't give it much thought, but one day they might wish they had. Just cause a lot of people do it, doesn't make it right :)