There has been several phishing attacks made against the Steam community in the past few days. Drunken Medics is no exception. I, personally, know of at least 2 people of Drunken Medics (who shall remain nameless) that have fallen prey to this fraudulent ploy. If you are unfamiliar with what phishing is, I direct your attention <em><a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing”>here</a></em>. To familiarize yourself with the latest scam, you can read up on it <em><a href=”http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/01/steam-phishing-scam-lures-target-gamers-with-free-games.ars”>here</a></em>. In a nutshell, phishers create a mockup webpage to resemble a legitimate Steam page with promise of free games. When people “login” to this false Steam site, they are unknowingly giving away their username and password to the phishers. <strong>YOU DID NOT WIN ANY FREE GAMES.</strong> If you receive a message from someone telling you, you've won free games, or Steam is giving out free games, do not follow the link, and report this person immediately. To be blunt, you honestly shouldn't follow any link you receive from an unknown source, anyways.

Some important tips on preventing your account from being hijacked:
-Know your phishing ploys.
Not all phishing attempts are made with a mockup website. Some are more direct, such as when a phisher poses as an administer and tells you to give away your username and password or your account will be revoked, penalized, ect. Steam administers will NEVER ask for your password. EVER.
-Create strong passwords and change them often.
NEVER use a person's name.
NEVER use a full word like, “dinosaur” or “zombie”.
Avoid obvious blunders, such as using “asdfasdf”, or the word “password” as your password. (You're not the first to think of it.)
Try to include numbers whenever possible.
Try to include multiple words or fractions of multiple words, such as the first letter of every word in a popular phrase you know.
Be sure to change your password every few months.
-When in doubt, Google.
It's a big world and if you are suspicious of a link, file, ect. Google it. Odds are, you're not the first to come in contact with it.
And finally, the most important tip of all:
Use common sense.

I hope this information was useful. For more information on internet security, look it up. I mean you're on the internet already, right? Take some initiative. I'm not going to hand everything to you.


Thank you.