Who doesn’t love Steam? If you’re looking for the best deals on games, a huge community, freedom to trade and gift games and items, and plenty of accounts to hack and take advantage of, Steam is the place for you (hopefully that doesn’t land me on some kind of list). Steam is wonderful, but it is also pretty vulnerable to the criminally inclined. Valve reported that each month, around 77,000 Steam accounts are compromised in some way, and so it’s decided to tighten security.
If you use Steam with any frequency, you probably remember a while back a request to verify your mobile phone number for security reasons. Lots of companies do this nowadays, and typically I like to skip this step; I don’t like my personal number to be all over the internet. Valve, though, is insisting you use its “Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator,” especially when trading with other players.
Apparently trading among strangers poses the greatest threat for members, and if you don’t have the authenticator (active for at least a week with trade confirmations turned on) Steam will be holding your items for three days before the trade is made final. If you’ve been friends with the person with whom you’re trading for over a year, Steam will only hold the items for one day. The bottom line? If you’re trading on Steam, activate the mobile authenticator for your own good; Steam is going to make trading hard for you if you don’t.
Source: VentureBeat