Just before Team Liquid’s 2019 StarLadder Berlin Major playoff match against Astralis, Jake “Stewie2k” Yip’s Steam account was hacked.
An unfortunate distraction from one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments of the year, Stewie2K noticed that he was locked out of his Steam account. This made it impossible for him to access the account or to see what was happening during the time he couldn’t get in.
“No idea what the fuck happened,” Stewie2k tweeted.
He then tagged CSGO’s official Twitter page, hoping they could address the stolen account that he wasn’t able to access. Luckily, Steam support responded quickly. While he was relieved to have access once again, Stewie2k noticed something unfortunate.
“Much love and appreciation for the quick recovery. Stole thousands of dollars of skins without trade ban and I have no idea how,” Stewie2k said. “Hats off to the hacker, who dedicated their life to these things. You got what you want.”
Fans on Reddit were quick to speculate how the hacker was able to not only hack Stewie2k’s account, but also steal his skins.
Stewie2k a victim of account hacking and skin stealing
One wondered if a SIM swap was what eventually led to the hack, as this has happened to other well known players and streamers. This would mean it was the fault of the player’s cellular service provider. But other fans wondered how that would allow the hacker to move all of the skins so quickly.
“Stewie said he had the Authenticator app. If they try to remove that it should be placed into trading ban immediately. Probably Steam fucked something up,” another fan responded.
“The same happened to me on both my Steam accounts when I got a new phone with same number. Not sure if you can circumvent it by removing the Authenticator when still logged in, I always don’t remember to do that. But shouldn’t really be possible here, because that would need Social Engineering on Stewie, which should be pretty hard,” one Reddit user theorized.
While losing valuable skins is definitely unfortunate, even for professional players, the Berlin Major was most likely of bigger concern once the account was recovered. Liquid went on to lose their quarterfinals series versus Astralis, making it a rough day for Stewie2k.
