How to avoid CSGO scam Seven Town and protect your Steam account

M Alzamora Published 02/04/2021

Here’s what players need to know about Seven Town, the classic CSGO scam that’s once again making the rounds on the Steam platform.

Seven Town is the latest scam to hit Steam users, with reports of accounts being stolen appearing on Reddit, the Steam forums, and Twitter. The scam is a new twist on an old formula, and it’s being used to phish account passwords, steal accounts, and empty the CSGO inventories from unsuspecting users.

Note: If any players are here reading because they’ve entered their password on a site called Seven Town or believe they’ve been hacked should immediately reset all their passwords. Then go ahead and follow this guide on Steam to secure their account.

Seven Town, Nine Town are stealing Steam accounts and CSGO items

Recent Scams called Seven Town and Nine Town technically not hacks. Instead, the people behind Seven Town and Nine Town use a clever combination of trickery and social engineering to gain control of a player’s account. It usually starts when players receive a message from a friend on Steam, asking them to click a link for a website. The scam has gone through several different versions over the years, but Nine Town, Seven Town, and Five Town, three of the most widespread, reel players in by asking them to vote for the friend’s CSGO team to play in an upcoming tournament.

But there is no CSGO team and no tournament. The person that’s messaging them isn’t actually their friend. The link to the website leads to a page that looks just like the Steam login page, but it’s a well-designed fake.

Hackers are stealing CSGO inventories through Steam’s web API – here’s how to avoid it

As soon as players log in to the fake Steam page, the people behind Seven Town steal their player’s username and password, hijacking their account and using it to message even more users. If and when players finally get their account back, it’s normally with an empty inventory and a bunch of angry Steam friends.

The good news is that there are several ways players can avoid getting scammed.

How do you avoid Steam scams like Seven Town?

Step 1: Make sure your account is secure

The first step happens before a player ever puts their info into a website. Two-factor authentication is a service provided by Valve through the Steam app, and it sends users a unique code every time they log in. Since the code has to be entered for the login to be successful, scammers won’t be able to access the account. Players can sign up through the Steam client with a phone number or email address.

Here’s everything you need to know about Steam Guard, Valve’s two-factor authentication service

Step 2: Use different passwords for your Steam account and email address

After activating 2FA, the next step is to make sure that players aren’t using the same password for both their Steam account and email address. If they are, it’s easy for scammers to use the stolen account information to log into a player’s email and lock down the account before players even know what happened.

This is probably the most important step. Since stealing or recovering a Steam account always involves a player’s email, making sure that it is safe is just as important as not getting scammed in the first place.

Step 3: Avoid messages from friends asking players to log into any third-party site

Steam lets people from all around the world game together, but in this case it’s just as much of a risk as it is a feature. Links sent through Steam can be dangerous, so players have to make sure they’re paying close attention. Players need to look for this small picture of a lock when they try to log into third-party sites that redirect them to a Steam login.

Many sites offer the option to use their Steam credentials to log in, such as CSGO statistic sites or trading forums, but it’s up to the player to use the tools available to protect their accounts.

It’s the internet’s version of a name tag, and it tells users that the website they’re logging in to is actually owned by Valve. Clicking on it will show a screen telling players that the website is owned by Valve Corporation, and that means it’s safe to log into. If there’s no lock, users should leave immediately.

Step 4: Be Smart

Steam offers a ton of ways for players to protect their accounts, but it’s the simple things players can do before they get scammed that make the biggest difference. The process might be annoying for players who happen to lose their password, but it’s a much better option than losing an entire account and all of the money players have put into it.

M Alzamora

About M Alzamora

There are few things that writer M Alzamora loves more in life than Pokemon. And there are even fewer things that she loves more than her favorite Pokemon, Eevee. But M’s appreciation for gaming isn’t just limited to Nintendo’s famous pocket monsters. She’s interested in every type of game across every genre of gaming, and she has the credentials to prove it. M’s work has also been seen on Working Classicists and gaming sites.

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