Steam Guard—protect your Steam library

[Brian Boru]

Some of you probably don't know about Steam Guard, a way to protect from losing your Steam account to a scammer. It's simple to setup, which I highly recommend to you all.

While logged in on Steam site:
Click Username > Account details > Account Security > Manage Steam Guard > Pick Phone or Email.

Thereafter, you'll be sent a code whenever you login from an unrecognized device—which of course is what a scammer would use.

This is Steam's version of what's more commonly known as Two Factor Authentication, which you should have on all your important online accounts.

Steam Support :: Steam Guard

help.steampowered.com

ETA:

Multi-factor authentication - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Pifanjr]

I approve of this message. Ideally you should add two factor authentication to every account you have. With the amount of hacked password databases, it's almost guaranteed that at least one of your accounts will be compromised at some point. Two factor authentication will then prevent hackers from actually getting into your account.

 

[Zed Clampet]

As someone who works as an IT security consultant, I approve of this message.

Also, be careful with anyone who contacts you through Steam who isn't a known friend. Don't click on external links they provide, and be very suspicious of anything they tell you. I had a guy try to run a scam on me a few months ago. I led him along a little bit then sent screenshots to Valve.

If for some reason you do need to click on a link someone has provided, launch Steam in a sandbox. The same goes for your regular email or links you come across here or anywhere. It's best that if you can't avoid that stuff that you launch your browser or email software inside a sandbox. I've gotten into the habit of always running Chrome that way. It's the best online security you can have. Why trust your antivirus when you don't have to run into trouble to begin with?