Around 77,000 Steam accounts are stolen every month

Valve is launching a two-factor authentication Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator app to protect its users accounts against hackers.

In a post on its Steam blog, the firm details the on-going issues with users accounts being accessed and pillaged for valuable in-game items.

Valve estimates that 77,000 accounts are hijacked every single month, and points out that these are not new and naive users but seasoned Steam users.

To combat this growing problem, the company has launched a new Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator to allow users to login with two seperate devices, in theory, providing greater security to their account.

In addition, to prevent an account being access and the in-game items attached to it being pillaged and sold, Steam has rolled out some changes to trading.

Anyone losing items in a trade must have had the authentication app linked to their account for over seven days and have trade confirmations turned on. Failing to meet this criteria results in items being held for three days.

In addition, if you have been friends for a year with the person you are trading with, items will be held for one day.