Valve Unveils Steam Guard – Uses Intel Identity Protection Technology
In case you missed it the folks over at Valve recently announced a new Steam and Steamworks feature called Steam Guard, which gives users greatly increased account security. Steam Guard allows users to link management of their account to a specific PC. Attempts to modify or change account settings by any other PC won’t be possible without the user’s approval. It looks like Valve will be using the Intel Identity Protection Technology (IPT) to make this work. IPT is a hardware-based security feature available with the new 2nd Generation Intel Core and Core vPro processors. An IPT algorithm runs on the chipset to generate a new numerical password every 30 seconds, integrating into the processor functionality that was previously only available on an external card or key fob. With IPT, secondary authentication is effortless, as it is provided by the chipset itself. IPT protects your Steam account against remote takeover, even if your login credentials have been phished, or accidentally shared. That is currently all the details we have on how this technology works!
“Account phishing and hijacking are our #1 support issues,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “With Intel’s IPT and Steam Guard, we’ve taken a big step towards giving customers the account security they need as they purchase more and more digital goods.” “We expect to see widespread adoption of hardware-based security like Intel IPT by other service providers,” said Doug Lombardi, Valve’s Vice President of Marketing. “If as a customer you are buying movies, music, games, or digital goods, you want to know that they are more secure than your physical goods.”
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