A little over nine million keys used to redeem and activate games on the Steam platform were stolen by a hacker who breached a gaming news site last month.

The site, DLH.net, provides news, reviews, cheat codes, and forums, was breached by an unnamed hacker, whose name isn't known but was also responsible for the Dota 2 forum breach. The site also allows users to share redeemable game keys through its forums, which along with the main site has around 3.3 million unique registered users. A known vulnerability found in older vBulletin forum software, which powers the site's community, allowed the hacker to access the databases.

Hackers are attracted by any web-resource where large amounts of money changes hands, like moths to light. This is what happened with Steam and, according to Valve’s own calculations, 77,000 user accounts get hijacked and pillaged monthly.

As Valve reveals, these victims are not only new or naive users. Professional  players, Reddit contributors and item traders have all fallen victim. Steam recognizes that hackers are doing real business by stealing accounts and virtual gaming property. Modern developments let cybercriminals wait for months before one particular malware sample or infection incident brings profit.