"HFB" 2 Million USD Steam account got hacked
Topic: The 2 Million USD CS:GO Hack! - Biggest hack in CS:GO history
Yesterday was a quite extraordinary situation, the CS:GO skin community got hit by the biggest hack in the history of the game! The infamous "HFB", who is known as the largest collector in the world got hacked and items worth around 2 Million USD were stolen. In the following article we will summarize everything worth knowing and update you on the current situation!
The start
For the first time in three years the inventory of "HFB" suddenly appears as public and items started moving to other accounts! While the CS:GO inventory had 23 pages full of high-tier and rare collectors items when he first went public it soon vanished and a little later only six pages were left. After short speculations about him moving his stuff to a new Steam account or just quickselling stuff for whatever reason, it soon became clear that someone else has gotten access to his Steam account.
Further actions
At first it seemed to be a "regular" hacked Steam account which sadly still happens on a daily basis through various methods, but zipeL soon stated that "HFB" still has an active mobile authenticator, only the email and password to the account are changed, which doesn't make sense when looking at regular scam/hack methods. Little sidenote: Check out this great video from zipeL regarding different scam methods and how to prevent them: Video Link!
Even more unregular was that the profiles that bought the items from the stolen account of "HFB" suddenly started to get Steam community banned, one after the other! What first seemed like an "item lock", soon developed into something the CS:GO community has never seen before (at least over the last couple of years) ... the item trades got "undid" by CSGO Steam Support.
Even more unregular was that the profiles that bought the items from the stolen account of "HFB" suddenly started to get Steam community banned, one after the other! What first seemed like an "item lock", soon developed into something the CS:GO community has never seen before (at least over the last couple of years) ... the item trades got "undid" by CSGO Steam Support.
The big question mark
Some of you might think ... Sounds fair to just undo the trades and give the items back to the real owner, right? The big problem here is that the sales are not done through Steam or simple trade-offers, they were done on third-party marketplaces like buff163! One of the marketplaces that were used the most is market.csgo.com, a Russian marketplace that also provides crypto payouts.
In a talk that ArrowCSGO had with one of the buyers of the items, that later got returned on Steam, stated that the site (market.csgo.com) told them that the guy already withdrew the balance of the sales, which sums up to around USD 200.000+ according to multiple sources on Twitter!
In a talk that ArrowCSGO had with one of the buyers of the items, that later got returned on Steam, stated that the site (market.csgo.com) told them that the guy already withdrew the balance of the sales, which sums up to around USD 200.000+ according to multiple sources on Twitter!
What happens with the (innocent) buyers?
As it seems right now "HFB" will get back (all) items that he lost in the hack attack as Steam community banned each person (& also "HFB" himself) that has one of the items in their inventories and undid trades manually! The big question mark now is what happens to the buyers, that paid thousands of dollars on third-party sites, especially if the funds are already paid out. The popular chinese marketplace buff163 stated that they have frozen the sellers account and will refund the balance as soon as it is confirmed that Steam does a rollback of the items!
The big advantage of KYC
With all the drama around the items and funds of the buyers another topic came up: KYC (Know Your Customer)! Sites like buff163 and GamerPay make sure to know their customers with verification processes and with that would be able to track down the person. We had a short talk with one of the owners from GamerPay regarding the topic, who found the following words:
Speculations
Why did Steam take such fast and drastic actions? Is it because of the big amounts we are talking about or maybe because of an internal mistake that even made the "hack" possible? It is hard to say yet and unlikely that we will ever get a statement from Steam about the situation!
Conclusion
Over the last 24 hours we witnessed the biggest hack in CS:GO history. If all the scammed items will be back in "HFBs" inventory soon and if the people that are currently missing thousands of dollars will ever get a refund is still questionable! (Edit 04.07.2022: The Russian marketplace mentioned refunded all funds to the buyers!) We hope you enjoyed reading today's article about the biggest scam in CS:GO history!
Do you think it is right that Steam just undid all the trades? Feel free to share your opinion in the comment section of our Social Media! Cheers.
Sources for this article: zipeL thread, TDM_Heyzeus , Arrow, buff163!
Do you think it is right that Steam just undid all the trades? Feel free to share your opinion in the comment section of our Social Media! Cheers.
Sources for this article: zipeL thread, TDM_Heyzeus , Arrow, buff163!
