Valve Announces Steam Guard

Valve has announced a new feature for Steam and Steamworks called Steam Guard.  The new feature will increase account security on the Steam service.  Steam Guard will allow users to link management of their account to a specific PC and attempting to modify or change account settings from any other PC will not be possible without user approval.

Steam Guard is available to third parties to incorporate into their own applications through Steamworks.

“Account phishing and hijacking are our #1 support issues,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve.  “With Intel’s IPT and Steam Guard, we’ve taken a big step towards giving customers the account security they need as they purchase more and more digital goods.”

“We expect to see widespread adoption of hardware-based security like Intel IPT by other service providers,” said Doug Lombardi, Valve’s Vice President of Marketing.  “If as a customer you are buying movies, music, games, or digital goods, you want to know that they are more secure than your physical goods.”

“With over 30 million accounts worldwide, Steam is an ideal platform for Intel IPT,” said George Thangadurai, General Manager of PC Client Services at Intel. “Those running Steam are investing in a robust digital collection of PC games. By adding hardware-based protection to these investments, we hope to bolster the amazing success of platforms such as Steam.” – Doug Lombardi, Valve Software