Over $2 million in CS:GO skins stolen from hacked Steam account
One of the most valuable Steam inventory of all time has reportedly been hacked and over $2 million in ultra-rare CS:GO skins have been stolen.
Players, and even those who have never played Counter-Strike in their lives know that CS:GO skins cost serious money.
Since these in-game items are literally worth tens of thousands of dollars in some cases, they are without a doubt the most valuable video game skins.
However, with this kind of value on the line, there are plenty of people looking to make a quick buck. Now, one of Steam's most valuable stocks has been reported to have been hacked, with $2 million worth of merchandise already sold or donated.
$2 million in CS:GO skins stolen from Steam
On June 21, CS:GO skin expert ohnePixel tweeted about the heist of the infamous HFB collector, listing ultra-rare items such as skins Souvenir Dragon Lore AWP, as well as skins Unstarred and #1 Blue Gem Karambit.
For some references, the #1 Blue Gem Karambit is valued at over 1,2 million euros (or $1,26 million) and is considered one of the holy of holies when it comes to CSGO skins.
“This is the most expensive inventory of all time, containing the most legendary items in CS:GO history,” ohnePixel explained. half (?) of the items were quickly sold and disappeared, the other half (?) was sent to the hacker's Steam account and is on the trading hold.
How the hacker gained access to account items has been the subject of much controversy, as Steam has a 7-day market cooldown when users log in from a new device or change their password.
Shortly after Pixel's initial tweet, a Twitter user named @quyy112 explained how the hackers most likely gained access without going through a waiting period.
"If someone knows your Steam username, there is a way they can send money to your account, open a Steam Support ticket and claim it's their account," they explained. "Support will give them access, as it seems that making a small random payment into your account is proof enough."
Later another skin expert named zipL provided additional information, explaining that H.F.B. hasn't logged into an account for three years, and that he had a mobile authenticator active, but his email address and password have been changed.
Also, items that were sold from HFB accounts appear to be disappearing from their new owners, which zipeL believes may be the result of a Steam bug. This seemed to be confirmed when the deals seemed to be coming back.
According to the zipeL thread, everyone who purchased one of the HFB skins had them taken away, with the exception of one user who moved Dragon Lore in storage.
While we don't know what exactly caused the hack, zipeL added that "this could be a sign of a serious internal bug in Steam that led to the possibility of a hack."
This could lead to Valve taking a serious look at how they handle account security if they haven't already.
Let's hope HFB can make up their losses or at least get the half that is still waiting to be traded back. We'll update this story if and when we get more information.