What to do when your account has been hijacked

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The very first thing you should do is lock your Steam account. This prevents the hijacker from:

• Purchasing anything
  
• Playing on VAC enabled game servers (Prevents a VAC Ban caused by the hijacker)
  
• Gifting your inventory items to other users.
  
• Trading with anybody or using the Community Market
  
• CD-Key activation
  
• Steam Community access in general.

Follow this Steam Support guide to lock your account.


The most common way an account gets hijacked is through malware or a RAT (Remote Administration Tool). This lets the hijacker control your computer so it looks like you performed the actions on the account, not the hijacker, in an attempt to avoid any potential blocks like a trade ban from a new login.

This means that even if you reset your password as long as the malware is still on your machine you'll keep getting hijacked.

Run a scan (Use a full scan, not a 'quick scan' that some tools provide) using a reliable program and wait for this to finish before continuing.


If you've been hijacked with malware or a RAT chances are the hijacker has other login details as well such as your email. Make sure your email account is secure before proceeding and ensure you have reset the password for your email account.


Now that you've secured your computer from being hijacked again, it's safe to reclaim your account and have the lock removed.

Follow this Steam Support guide to reclaim your account.


You've secured your computer. You've regained access to your account. Now you need to do everything possible to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Follow this guide on securing your account to the highest level possible.