New Steam Security Updates Coming Next Week

[THUMBS]

We believe these steps are necessary to ensure that accounts are made more secure.
As part of its effort to improve overall Steam account security, Valve has announced plans to roll out some new measures. The new updates, coming next week to the juggernaut PC platform, specifically pertain to account security, market transactions, and account restoration.

The updates (bullet point list below) will roll out on March 9. Valve says in a blog post that the first two points do not pertain to people who are already using the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator.

Steam Security Updates Coming March 9

Trade hold duration will be increased to 15 days (for long-time Steam friends the duration will remain 1 day)
Listing on the Steam Community Market will have a hold of 15 days before an item can be sold
Steam Support will no longer restore items that have left accounts following a successful trade or market transaction (a process that previously created duplicates of original items)

These upcoming security-improvement updates come after Steam disclosed in December 2015 that some 77,000 Steam accounts were compromised every month. Account theft is nothing new on Steam. It's been happening since the platform's first days. But instances of hacking jumped by twenty-fold, or close to 2,000 percent, following the introduction of Steam Trading four years ago.

In December, Valve rolled out some new security measures and next week's updates should improve things further still.

"We believe these steps are necessary to ensure that accounts are made more secure, that users are empowered to identify and solve problems, and that the economic systems enjoyed by millions of customers are not compromised by people with malicious intent," Valve said.

For more, check out Valve's full blog post, which offers deep insight into the issues at play and the reasoning behind the company's decision to introduce the new security updates.

Steam is one of the biggest online gaming platforms in the world. It has more than 125 million users and a library of 6,000-plus games.