In 2022, it became known about two major cases where hackers managed to steal skins for CS:GO for a round sum. Knowing about such events is useful not only to satisfy curiosity, but also to avoid ending up in a similar situation yourself: after all, even if your inventory costs much less than those discussed below, no one wants to lose honestly obtained items.
The problem of skins being stolen by scammers has been around for as long as the Steam trading platform itself, and developers are trying to combat this phenomenon. It was to protect users that trade lock was introduced, due to which you have to wait a week before you can sell the item you received. But such measures are often not enough.
2 million worth of inventory
At the end of June this year, reports emerged of an incident in which inventory with a total value of more than $2 million was stolen. According to a trader known under the nickname ohnePixel, it included seven souvenir AWPDragonLore, as well as rare varieties of Karambit knives, including #1 BlueGemKarambit, whose cost is estimated at more than a million dollars. It remains unknown how exactly the hackers managed to gain access to the account. It is reported that HFB, its original owner, has not logged into it for several years. Perhaps it was because of this that the hacker managed to seize control of the account and sell skins to other users.
Shortly after this massive theft became known, Valvecancelled the transactions made by the hacker, and all items were returned to the owner's account. Thus, those who purchased skins, not knowing that they were stolen, found themselves victims, since they paid a lot of money, and in the end lost their skins. Those who made purchases on large third-party sites managed to get out of the situation without losses, since their administration was eventually forced to reimburse users for the money spent.
Hack CS.money
Another similar incident occurred last week, and this time the target of the hackers was not a specific collector, but the trading platform CS.Money. On August 13, a screenshot appeared on Twitter with a list of accounts to which stolen skins with a total value of more than one and a half million dollars were transferred. Simultaneously with the main attack, the hackers tried to divert attention by sending trading offers to the accounts of large skin owners. It is assumed that the purpose of such tactics – make it harder for Valve to separate legitimate transactions from fraudulent ones.
As a result, the service had to suspend transactions, and this option remains unavailable to this day. It remains unclear whether CS.Money will be able to return the stolen skins. The company has announced a reward for any information about the details of the hack.
In conclusion, let us recall the basic rules that will help you keep your inventory safe and sound:
- use a mobile authenticator and monitor which sites you log in to using Steam, to avoid becoming a victim of phishing;
- carefully check the composition of the exchange offers you receive;
- use large trading platforms, such as Lis-Skins.ru – they not only offer a large assortment of skins, but also care about user safety;
- read the exchange rules carefully and don’t hesitate to write to support if you have any doubts – for example, if someone else writes to you on our behalf.
