Steam is considered the most important gaming platform in the world with millions of players. A few months ago, the platform was reportedly affected by a massive attack. However, very few players are likely to have noticed anything.
Recently, millions of players on PS4 and PS5 were affected by a severe PSN outage. However, some players argue on Reddit that there have been even worse attacks on other platforms:
On August 24, 2024, Steam was hit by a massive, coordinated DDoS attack that was likely the largest ever directed against the platform. This was reported by the Chinese security site Qianxin.com.
The attack targeted Steam servers worldwide but largely went unnoticed. This highlights how sophisticated and robust Valve’s infrastructure is in handling such attacks.
In August 2024, Steam was affected by a major cyberattack that likely went unnoticed
What kind of attack was it? A total of 107 Steam servers across 13 regions were reportedly affected by the attack, including China, the USA, and Europe. The attacks aimed to bring down Steam’s servers. However, most of you likely did not notice the attack much.
Overall, more than 280,000 attack commands were reportedly triggered. There were said to be four coordinated waves aiming to take down Steam’s servers. About 30,000 bots were said to have a combined attack capacity of 1.3 to 2 terabits per second. For comparison: the most important German internet node (De-Cix Frankfurt) reached a data record of 18 terabits per second (via faz.net (Paywall)).
Typically, compromised devices operating in a botnet are used for such attacks. Security experts explain that most of the devices used were reportedly located in Brazil, Russia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Phones, tablets, even wearables, webcams, or routers can be used as bots if they are not adequately secured (via bsi.bund.de).
Why is this unusual? Almost all websites online are attacked or hit by bots. Typically, they search for security vulnerabilities or try to annoy operators and users. Even on Steam, it is claimed that attacks occur daily, but they are only in the dozens per day. Thus, such an extensive attack is rather unusual.
However, some users joke on Reddit: To bring down Steam, a DDoS attack is not needed, just a summer or winter sale would make the servers unreachable (via Reddit.com).
Steam introduced a new feature for its platform a few months ago. Our editor tested it for months and was able to save several hundred euros because of it. For whom it is worthwhile and for whom it is not, you can read on MeinMMO: I have been using a new feature on Steam for months and have saved several hundred euros since then
