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New Steam Update: Scam Prevention

As of September 18th, Steam has released a new crucial security feature for scam prevention. In short, when a Steam user attempts to log into a Steam account from a different location, they cannot send trade offers, start trading items, or start listing items on the Steam Community Market for a few days. This new Steam Update’s delay allows the much-needed time for Steam users suspecting fraudulent activity to contact Steam support or Steam employees in an attempt to gain access back into their Steam account and change their login information. When a trade offer to another account or a listing on the Steam Market is attempted, users will be greeted by this new message instead:

There was an error sending your trade offer. Please try again later.

You have logged in from a new device. In order to protect the items in your inventory, you will be unable to trade from this device for days.

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How Do API Scams Work?

Though this new Steam Update is a huge step to avoid scams, users can always take steps to prevent trade scams themselves and avoid having to contact Steam Support. The most common way for scammers to gain access to accounts is somewhat falsely advertised as “API scams.” An API key, put simply, is a unique string of characters that other apps, websites, and, yes, malicious software use to identify your Steam Account and interact with it. However, the name “API Scam” is quite misleading because with an API key, other users can only monitor your outgoing trades and cancel them, but nothing else. In most cases, users get scammed because of a security breach on their end. This usually happens by logging into a fake trading site or scam site, entering the user’s login and password, and giving the site their Steam Guard. From there, scammers have full access to the user’s Steam Account, claiming whatever CS2 skins they desire. Therefore, changing to a new trade URL will have no effect. The easiest way for users to protect themselves from these types of Steam account scams is to double-check that all trading sites used are secure and trustworthy and that the URL is actually correct. Though this new Steam Update will assist you in protecting your Steam account, still contact Steam Support immediately if you suspect that your account may be compromised.

What Does this New Steam Scam Prevention Update Mean?

It’s excellent to see Valve take action to increase online security and protect its users against long-existing scams. Through this simple yet genius feature, the new Steam Update prevents API scammers from exploiting the quick speeds at which they can trade items, making securing access to the rightful owners of the account much easier. By patching this common method for scammers to gain access to Steam Wallet funds and items in inventories, Valve effectively heavily limited existing scammers and deterred would-be scammers. To keep updated on new Steam Updates and catch up on content related to Counter-Strike 2, check out the other articles published on the SkinLords Blog Page! As always, keep learning and have fun out there!