Steam requires two-factor authentication via SMS for developer accounts

Steam will require developers to set up SMS verification. The company does this after accounts of various Steam developers were taken over, after which hackers provided their games with malware.

Starting October 24, developers will be required to associate a phone number with their Steamworks account, lets Valve in a blog post. When modifying a build on the ‘default/public branch’ of a released app, SMS verification will be requested by default from then on. This means that developers can no longer release an update to a game without two-factor authentication. Also, if Steamworks accounts want to add new users to their partner group, they must use 2fa. In the future, two-factor authentication must also be used for other actions, Valve said.

Valve explains to PC Gamer that it is taking this measure because it has recently seen an increase in the number of targeted attacks on Steam developer accounts. For example, around August, hackers took over the accounts of several Steam developers, discovered X user Simon Carless. The developers’ game builds were then infected with malware and distributed to players through an automatic update. Valve confirmed the events to PC Gamer, but said that “less than a hundred” users had installed the games at the time the malware was added. This group of users has now received an email from Valve.