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I admire the absolute hell out of Valve and have for a long time. Gabe Newell is, for my money, the biggest mensch in tech. Let's take a moment and look at how

I admire the absolute hell out of Valve and have for a long time. Gabe Newell is, for my money, the biggest mensch in tech. Let's take a moment and look at how this was handled: The message communicates exactly what happened in clear terms that don't try to cover anyone's ass. They explain which data was compromised and the potential implications. No double-talk. This could be an email you got from a friend or colleague. The message conveys Valve's hope that the credit cards are secure but makes clear that users should be nonetheless vigilant about watching for suspicious activity. Just in case. The message is signed by the head honcho of the company. Not some communications or PR weasel. It's in your inbox, not on some obscure blog. Finally, it closes with: "I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience." Accepting responsibility, acknowledging that it's a fuckup, and showing some empathy for the fact that this completely sucks for their customers. Sony, Adobe and their ilk could learn a lot from this company.

ltamake 15y ago
I absolutely agree. I would rather be told the bad news with all the facts than a sugar-coated "oh-we-were-hacked-but-its-not-our-fault-and-you-customers-are-screwed" response.
sdkmvx 15y ago
You are absolutely right, and I really appreciate this from Valve. There is only one thing that would have made it better: even more info. He says passwords were "hashed and salted." This could be anything from the naïve MD5(pass+salt) to the more secure bcrypt or PBKDF2. Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first, but information is always welcome in a scenario like this. There should be no reason to hide your cryptography method provided that it is secure. > Sony, Adobe and their ilk could learn a lot from this company. And unfortunately they won’t listen…
- Duff 15y ago
  The issue may be more complex. Steam has been around for awhile now -- there may be an Amazon.com like issue where new passwords are secure, but older passwords are using crypt or something!
  - jrockway 15y ago
    It's easy to re-crypt the password when you log in.
    - lambada 15y ago
      But how many accounts haven't had a login for a while?
- lawnchair_larry 15y ago
  The Use bcrypt rant comes up on HN a lot, but I've actually never seen a website that uses bcrypt or PBKDF2 in the real world. Hell, I rarely encounter developers or admins who even know what it is. I doubt it was more than md5+salt, but maybe. Edit: I should clarify - there certainly are examples of bcrypt being used, and I know there are tools available. But pick several random websites that have forums or user accounts and the number actually using it will be very small. That has been my experience once exposed to the code/infrastructure anyway.
  - cheald 15y ago
    Any modern Rails app is very likely using bcrypt to store password hashes. It's baked into most of the popular auth frameworks.
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      It's actually now baked into rails itself. You can declare has_secure_password in the model and you're away.
      - lawnchair_larry 15y ago
        Why would you have to declare it?
        mguillemot 15y ago
        Because it adds a few attributes (like 'password') and methods (like 'authenticate') to your model, and you might not really want such things on every one of your models. Clarification: has_secure_password does NOT mean you choose between secure or non-secure password, it just mean "I want a password on this model, and better make it secure guys!"
  - chrischen 15y ago
    It is extremely easy to use bcrypt. http://www.openwall.com/phpass/ http://www.openwall.com/phpass/
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > There should be no reason to hide your cryptography method provided that it is secure. I'm totally with you, and I suspect we may see a more technical explanation of the event in the coming days. That said, this is a tough situation for Valve. They have many sorts of users, many of them who have no idea what MD5 hashing is or why it would be awful to use. You're already delivering bad news, so it may be wise not to make nontechnical users feel further discomfort at confronting terminology they don't understand. In this, I feel like Valve has banked enough credibility for me to trust for the moment that they can evaluate their security and say "Oh, fuck, this will be cracked and it's only a matter of time," and then communicate that in clear terms in their message.
  - aw3c2 15y ago
    "hashed and salted" would already overwhelm those people's knowledge. I don't see any good reason why they should not tell their algorithm.
    - riffraff 15y ago
      if they use a weak "hashing and salting" scheme they are more likely to get a mob with pitchforks at their gates than if they are left in the dark hoping it's bcrypt with 200 stretches.
- guelo 15y ago
  Could the revelation of the encryption used give the attackers the hint they need to break it open?
  - mh- 15y ago
    No.
  - feral 15y ago
    I'd say its possible, but unlikely; and you'd hope its not a major factor in practice. When you assume that the attackers would have, or could get, at least one account which they know the password for, then if the hashing scheme is something they'll be able to crack en masse, then they are probably going to be able to figure out what the hashing scheme is, from their known plaintext.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - keeperofdakeys 15y ago
    In general, if you are depending on a secret cryptographic algorithm, then you are doing something wrong. Cryptographic algorithms are horribly complicated, with many attack vectors you need to know, and prevent. Chances are, someone writing their own code isn't going to make a secure system. By using a known, secure system, it doesn't actually matter if people know what it is. A known system has been tested, and deemed to be 'secure'. If knowing the name did mean they could exploit it, then it probably isn't a good system to be using in the first place. As an example, here is an attack you may not have considered. If you wanted to make an authentication system, you would want to compare a password with a stored password (or hash). Most people would do a byte by byte comparison of the passwords (or hashes). The problem is, a byte by byte comparison takes longer for a correct password (even if you use hashes), as the incorrect answer exits on the first compare failure. This is called a timing attack, and is an example of a side channel. Most people wouldn't even know that such an attack existed. This is why you want to use a known algorithm, because the people who wrote them know these kinds of attacks. So if people know your secure algorithm, they shouldn't be able to exploit that knowledge. Here are two links posted here recently, which show these concepts very well. The third is an hour talk about cryptography in general, and I highly recommend it. http://carlos.bueno.org/2011/10/timing.html http://carlos.bueno.org/2011/10/timing.html http://syhw.posterous.com/two-amusing-side-channel-attacks http://syhw.posterous.com/two-amusing-side-channel-attacks http://fosslc.org/drupal/content/everything-you-need-know-about-cryptography-1-hour http://fosslc.org/drupal/content/everything-you-need-know-ab...
- charliesome 15y ago
  > Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first You'd be surprised. The Steam Community is (or was when I checked, about a month ago) vulnerable to CSRF everywhere. Valve might hold their own when it comes to games, but I'm not too confident when it comes to the web development side of things.
- mjschultz 15y ago
  My curiosity side agrees with you, but my practical side does not. > He says passwords were "hashed and salted." This could be anything from the naïve MD5(pass+salt) to the more secure bcrypt or PBKDF2. Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first, but information is always welcome in a scenario like this. Do these details actually matter to you, a technically savvy user? If they told you they used bcrypt or PBKDF2 for their password hashed and salted passwords would you think to yourself: "oh well, in that case I don't need to change my password" or are you going to take the few moments and change you password anyway? I'd probably just change my password. For even less savvy users, they're getting technical details that they don't really care about now. Depending on where those details are in the message they might miss important bits of useful information. I suppose if they said it was MD5(salt:pass) and you used the same password for steam and something else you might have reason to be concerned, but probably not unless they are targeting you specifically. That said, I think any company should provide a link to a blog that does dig into the important technical details for people that want to know. And keep updating it as new information is found.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Personally, I don't think I'm going to bother to change my password since it's a 64-character or so generated one for their site only and they don't have my credit card info. But I can see some reasons why I would care about the details of their encryption method. If it's MD5(pass+salt) then most people probably need to go change it, along with any other sites they're using that password at, and possibly mess up their evening a bit. If it's something silly but better like sha512(sha512(...(pass)...)) enough times such that it takes a good chunk of time for any password, or even better bcrypt, then most users can relax and change it when they can get around to it.
- buro9 15y ago
  It's vBulletin 3.8.x The passwords are hashed and salted using this: md5(md5(password + user_salt))
  - tommi 15y ago
    Most likely they have another authentication backend.
    - buro9 15y ago
      Not for Steam forums they don't, they're using vBulletin and it doesn't appear to be modified beyond the theme. That Steam forums requires a separate registration shows that there is unlikely to be any integration between Steam and the forum software. However their point is that if you used the same username and password on both the Steam forums and Steam itself (with likely the same username) then by virtue of Steam forums being compromised, your main account should be considered compromised.
  - rmc 15y ago
    Double MD5‼ To be extra secure‼
  - knutae 15y ago
    Running a hash function directly on a hash makes little sense. You probably meant: md5(md5(password) + user_salt)
    - buro9 15y ago
      [edit]I'm wrong, you're right[/edit] Just re-checked... the line is this: md5(md5($vbulletin->GPC['password']) . $vbulletin->userinfo['salt'])) I got confused by the last bracket closing an outer conditional.
Joakal 15y ago
Legally speaking, wouldn't Valve become liable due to a public apology that allows people to say it's Valve's fault when 'bad stuff' happens? Even though Sony didn't quite apologise, they tried to squash legal action through contract changes(?) and offering a free game download(?) as a form of settlement.
- scotje 15y ago
  I would say your customers can sue you regardless of what you say in an email or blog post. Using lawyers to hide from your customers seems less than optimal.
- billswift 15y ago
  I've seen that worry expressed several times, but have never heard about a case where it actually made a difference. Does anyone have a cite? It sounds like FUD spread by a lawyer to drum up more work.
seunghomattyang 15y ago
Valve handled it well but something like this shouldn't even happen in the first place. Valve saw what happened to PSN so Valve should have improved its security after such an incident. Since Valve holds people's CC numbers and passwords, they should have put in a lot more care to something so fundamental like security. Customer shouldn't have to check their bank statements at all. Sorry but real mensch in tech never has its database compromised.
- danilocampos 15y ago
  > Sorry but real mensch in tech never has its database compromised. It's nice to imagine but that's not really how the world works. Perfection is impossible after any system reaches a certain level of complexity. The technical security implementation might have been airtight, but then a human factor compromised things in the end. Tough to say. Nonetheless, "be perfect" is not a reasonable strategy – or expectation. > Valve should have improved its security after such an incident. You've typed words here without really saying anything. Improved it how? Who's to say they didn't? Until and unless Valve gives us a post-mortem, we'll have no idea what the cause of the breach is. Nonetheless, it may include factors they never thought to consider.
  - seunghomattyang 15y ago
    I highly doubt Valve's database is more complex than Apple's or Amazon's database. You never hear about theirs being compromised to the same extent as Valve's.
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      But I imagine if Apple's or Amazon's databases were compromised, it would quite likely be to a similar extent. Once you can perform a select statement, extracting data becomes pretty easy.
    - vacri 15y ago
      Given Apple's propensity to stomp on any negative publicity, they could have had a dozen similar issues and never disclosed them. Hardly a fair comparison.
mushishi 15y ago
It's a proper way content-wise but why didn't I get this announcement in my email? Was this sent within a Steam system? If so, it's not enough. I use only Steam now and then.
lists 15y ago
Good ol' American values
Shivetya 15y ago
No offense to your Valve worship fest, but when can I start beating on them for not having notifying me at my registered e-mail address? How many days before I can expect that? Because while some people have apparently received an e-mail they certainly are not contacting all their customers.
- speleding 15y ago
  Where you registered on their forums? Or are you just a steam user? (The steam database has not be compromised as far as they are aware)
  - Angostura 15y ago
    I'm on both and haven't had an e-mail - perhaps an overzealous spam filter, somewhere?
    - mrud 15y ago
      I think they only show it inside the Steam client. I didn't receive any email either but it did show up in the client as a normal notification.
dowskitest 15y ago
"I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience." Sorry, but this is more than an inconvenience. It's a violation of user privacy that Valve didn't prevent. I thought that the response from Newell was right on until that point. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

ltamake 15y ago

I absolutely agree. I would rather be told the bad news with all the facts than a sugar-coated "oh-we-were-hacked-but-its-not-our-fault-and-you-customers-are-screwed" response.

sdkmvx 15y ago

You are absolutely right, and I really appreciate this from Valve. There is only one thing that would have made it better: even more info. He says passwords were "hashed and salted." This could be anything from the naïve MD5(pass+salt) to the more secure bcrypt or PBKDF2. Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first, but information is always welcome in a scenario like this. There should be no reason to hide your cryptography method provided that it is secure. > Sony, Adobe and their ilk could learn a lot from this company. And unfortunately they won’t listen…

Duff 15y ago
The issue may be more complex. Steam has been around for awhile now -- there may be an Amazon.com like issue where new passwords are secure, but older passwords are using crypt or something!
- jrockway 15y ago
  It's easy to re-crypt the password when you log in.
  - lambada 15y ago
    But how many accounts haven't had a login for a while?
lawnchair_larry 15y ago
The Use bcrypt rant comes up on HN a lot, but I've actually never seen a website that uses bcrypt or PBKDF2 in the real world. Hell, I rarely encounter developers or admins who even know what it is. I doubt it was more than md5+salt, but maybe. Edit: I should clarify - there certainly are examples of bcrypt being used, and I know there are tools available. But pick several random websites that have forums or user accounts and the number actually using it will be very small. That has been my experience once exposed to the code/infrastructure anyway.
- cheald 15y ago
  Any modern Rails app is very likely using bcrypt to store password hashes. It's baked into most of the popular auth frameworks.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    It's actually now baked into rails itself. You can declare has_secure_password in the model and you're away.
    - lawnchair_larry 15y ago
      Why would you have to declare it?
      - mguillemot 15y ago
        Because it adds a few attributes (like 'password') and methods (like 'authenticate') to your model, and you might not really want such things on every one of your models. Clarification: has_secure_password does NOT mean you choose between secure or non-secure password, it just mean "I want a password on this model, and better make it secure guys!"
- chrischen 15y ago
  It is extremely easy to use bcrypt. http://www.openwall.com/phpass/ http://www.openwall.com/phpass/
danilocampos 15y ago
> There should be no reason to hide your cryptography method provided that it is secure. I'm totally with you, and I suspect we may see a more technical explanation of the event in the coming days. That said, this is a tough situation for Valve. They have many sorts of users, many of them who have no idea what MD5 hashing is or why it would be awful to use. You're already delivering bad news, so it may be wise not to make nontechnical users feel further discomfort at confronting terminology they don't understand. In this, I feel like Valve has banked enough credibility for me to trust for the moment that they can evaluate their security and say "Oh, fuck, this will be cracked and it's only a matter of time," and then communicate that in clear terms in their message.
- aw3c2 15y ago
  "hashed and salted" would already overwhelm those people's knowledge. I don't see any good reason why they should not tell their algorithm.
  - riffraff 15y ago
    if they use a weak "hashing and salting" scheme they are more likely to get a mob with pitchforks at their gates than if they are left in the dark hoping it's bcrypt with 200 stretches.
guelo 15y ago
Could the revelation of the encryption used give the attackers the hint they need to break it open?
- mh- 15y ago
  No.
- feral 15y ago
  I'd say its possible, but unlikely; and you'd hope its not a major factor in practice. When you assume that the attackers would have, or could get, at least one account which they know the password for, then if the hashing scheme is something they'll be able to crack en masse, then they are probably going to be able to figure out what the hashing scheme is, from their known plaintext.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- keeperofdakeys 15y ago
  In general, if you are depending on a secret cryptographic algorithm, then you are doing something wrong. Cryptographic algorithms are horribly complicated, with many attack vectors you need to know, and prevent. Chances are, someone writing their own code isn't going to make a secure system. By using a known, secure system, it doesn't actually matter if people know what it is. A known system has been tested, and deemed to be 'secure'. If knowing the name did mean they could exploit it, then it probably isn't a good system to be using in the first place. As an example, here is an attack you may not have considered. If you wanted to make an authentication system, you would want to compare a password with a stored password (or hash). Most people would do a byte by byte comparison of the passwords (or hashes). The problem is, a byte by byte comparison takes longer for a correct password (even if you use hashes), as the incorrect answer exits on the first compare failure. This is called a timing attack, and is an example of a side channel. Most people wouldn't even know that such an attack existed. This is why you want to use a known algorithm, because the people who wrote them know these kinds of attacks. So if people know your secure algorithm, they shouldn't be able to exploit that knowledge. Here are two links posted here recently, which show these concepts very well. The third is an hour talk about cryptography in general, and I highly recommend it. http://carlos.bueno.org/2011/10/timing.html http://carlos.bueno.org/2011/10/timing.html http://syhw.posterous.com/two-amusing-side-channel-attacks http://syhw.posterous.com/two-amusing-side-channel-attacks http://fosslc.org/drupal/content/everything-you-need-know-about-cryptography-1-hour http://fosslc.org/drupal/content/everything-you-need-know-ab...
charliesome 15y ago
> Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first You'd be surprised. The Steam Community is (or was when I checked, about a month ago) vulnerable to CSRF everywhere. Valve might hold their own when it comes to games, but I'm not too confident when it comes to the web development side of things.
mjschultz 15y ago
My curiosity side agrees with you, but my practical side does not. > He says passwords were "hashed and salted." This could be anything from the naïve MD5(pass+salt) to the more secure bcrypt or PBKDF2. Now, I have every reason to believe that Valve is smart enough to not use methods like the first, but information is always welcome in a scenario like this. Do these details actually matter to you, a technically savvy user? If they told you they used bcrypt or PBKDF2 for their password hashed and salted passwords would you think to yourself: "oh well, in that case I don't need to change my password" or are you going to take the few moments and change you password anyway? I'd probably just change my password. For even less savvy users, they're getting technical details that they don't really care about now. Depending on where those details are in the message they might miss important bits of useful information. I suppose if they said it was MD5(salt:pass) and you used the same password for steam and something else you might have reason to be concerned, but probably not unless they are targeting you specifically. That said, I think any company should provide a link to a blog that does dig into the important technical details for people that want to know. And keep updating it as new information is found.
- Jach 15y ago
  Personally, I don't think I'm going to bother to change my password since it's a 64-character or so generated one for their site only and they don't have my credit card info. But I can see some reasons why I would care about the details of their encryption method. If it's MD5(pass+salt) then most people probably need to go change it, along with any other sites they're using that password at, and possibly mess up their evening a bit. If it's something silly but better like sha512(sha512(...(pass)...)) enough times such that it takes a good chunk of time for any password, or even better bcrypt, then most users can relax and change it when they can get around to it.
buro9 15y ago
It's vBulletin 3.8.x The passwords are hashed and salted using this: md5(md5(password + user_salt))
- tommi 15y ago
  Most likely they have another authentication backend.
  - buro9 15y ago
    Not for Steam forums they don't, they're using vBulletin and it doesn't appear to be modified beyond the theme. That Steam forums requires a separate registration shows that there is unlikely to be any integration between Steam and the forum software. However their point is that if you used the same username and password on both the Steam forums and Steam itself (with likely the same username) then by virtue of Steam forums being compromised, your main account should be considered compromised.
- rmc 15y ago
  Double MD5‼ To be extra secure‼
- knutae 15y ago
  Running a hash function directly on a hash makes little sense. You probably meant: md5(md5(password) + user_salt)
  - buro9 15y ago
    [edit]I'm wrong, you're right[/edit] Just re-checked... the line is this: md5(md5($vbulletin->GPC['password']) . $vbulletin->userinfo['salt'])) I got confused by the last bracket closing an outer conditional.

Joakal 15y ago

Legally speaking, wouldn't Valve become liable due to a public apology that allows people to say it's Valve's fault when 'bad stuff' happens? Even though Sony didn't quite apologise, they tried to squash legal action through contract changes(?) and offering a free game download(?) as a form of settlement.

scotje 15y ago
I would say your customers can sue you regardless of what you say in an email or blog post. Using lawyers to hide from your customers seems less than optimal.
billswift 15y ago
I've seen that worry expressed several times, but have never heard about a case where it actually made a difference. Does anyone have a cite? It sounds like FUD spread by a lawyer to drum up more work.

seunghomattyang 15y ago

Valve handled it well but something like this shouldn't even happen in the first place. Valve saw what happened to PSN so Valve should have improved its security after such an incident. Since Valve holds people's CC numbers and passwords, they should have put in a lot more care to something so fundamental like security. Customer shouldn't have to check their bank statements at all. Sorry but real mensch in tech never has its database compromised.

danilocampos 15y ago
> Sorry but real mensch in tech never has its database compromised. It's nice to imagine but that's not really how the world works. Perfection is impossible after any system reaches a certain level of complexity. The technical security implementation might have been airtight, but then a human factor compromised things in the end. Tough to say. Nonetheless, "be perfect" is not a reasonable strategy – or expectation. > Valve should have improved its security after such an incident. You've typed words here without really saying anything. Improved it how? Who's to say they didn't? Until and unless Valve gives us a post-mortem, we'll have no idea what the cause of the breach is. Nonetheless, it may include factors they never thought to consider.
- seunghomattyang 15y ago
  I highly doubt Valve's database is more complex than Apple's or Amazon's database. You never hear about theirs being compromised to the same extent as Valve's.
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    But I imagine if Apple's or Amazon's databases were compromised, it would quite likely be to a similar extent. Once you can perform a select statement, extracting data becomes pretty easy.
  - vacri 15y ago
    Given Apple's propensity to stomp on any negative publicity, they could have had a dozen similar issues and never disclosed them. Hardly a fair comparison.

mushishi 15y ago

It's a proper way content-wise but why didn't I get this announcement in my email? Was this sent within a Steam system? If so, it's not enough. I use only Steam now and then.

lists 15y ago

Good ol' American values

Shivetya 15y ago

No offense to your Valve worship fest, but when can I start beating on them for not having notifying me at my registered e-mail address? How many days before I can expect that? Because while some people have apparently received an e-mail they certainly are not contacting all their customers.

speleding 15y ago
Where you registered on their forums? Or are you just a steam user? (The steam database has not be compromised as far as they are aware)
- Angostura 15y ago
  I'm on both and haven't had an e-mail - perhaps an overzealous spam filter, somewhere?
  - mrud 15y ago
    I think they only show it inside the Steam client. I didn't receive any email either but it did show up in the client as a normal notification.

dowskitest 15y ago

"I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience." Sorry, but this is more than an inconvenience. It's a violation of user privacy that Valve didn't prevent. I thought that the response from Newell was right on until that point. Left me with a bad taste in my mouth.