Valve Corporation pushed back on reports of a massive Steam user data sale. The company says that what surfaced online was not evidence of a breach of Steam's systems but rather an archive of older SMS messages. Security outlet BleepingComputer reported that a hacker was offering roughly 89 million records for about $5,000. Those records allegedly included one-time passcodes sent to Steam users by text message along with their phone numbers. According to Valve, all of the codes were expired by the time they landed in the hacker's hands, and none of the files included any passwords, payment details, or direct ties between phone numbers and Steam accounts. Valve's statement reads, "This was not a breach of Steam systems. The data consisted of older text messages containing one-time codes valid for only 15 minutes and the phone numbers they were sent to. There is no account information, passwords, payment information or other personal data in that cache."

The company also reminded users that whenever an SMS code is used to change a Steam email address or password, they will receive confirmations by email and through Steam's secure messaging system. The incident prompted speculation that third-party messaging provider Twilio might have been hacked. A user on X, formerly Twitter, suggested that Twilio was to blame, but both Valve and a Twilio spokesperson denied the claim. Twilio said it found no evidence that its infrastructure was involved, and Valve confirmed it does not use Twilio for Steam authentication texts. Valve says users do not need to change their passwords or phone numbers, but it encourages everyone to enable the Steam Mobile Authenticator for stronger protection. The company's security team is still investigating how these historical messages were exposed.

Agentic AI is redefining the cybersecurity landscape—introducing new opportunities that demand rethinking how to secure AI while offering the keys to addressing those challenges. Unlike standard AI systems, AI agents can take autonomous actions—interacting with tools, environments, other agents and sensitive data. This provides new opportunities for defenders but also introduces new classes of risks. Enterprises must now take a dual approach: defend both with and against agentic AI.

Building Cybersecurity Defense With Agentic AI
Cybersecurity teams are increasingly overwhelmed by talent shortages and growing alert volume. Agentic AI offers new ways to bolster threat detection, response and AI security—and requires a fundamental pivot in the foundations of the cybersecurity ecosystem. Agentic AI systems can perceive, reason and act autonomously to solve complex problems. They can also serve as intelligent collaborators for cyber experts to safeguard digital assets, mitigate risks in enterprise environments and boost efficiency in security operations centers. This frees up cybersecurity teams to focus on high-impact decisions, helping them scale their expertise while potentially reducing workforce burnout. For example, AI agents can cut the time needed to respond to software security vulnerabilities by investigating the risk of a new common vulnerability or exposure in just seconds. They can search external resources, evaluate environments and summarize and prioritize findings so human analysts can take swift, informed action.

VideoCardz has put a spotlight on a compelling Intel Community announcement—ten days ago, a site moderator (RonaldM_Intel) disclosed that company engineers are currently engaged in the investigation of a major Arc graphics card-related issue. At the beginning of 2025, Hardware Unboxed uploaded a video article (see below) that delved into the Arc Xe2 B580 graphics card design's "big problem." Going back several months, review outlets observed B580 sample cards leveraging lower than expected performance when paired with older generation processors. As summarized by VideoCardz's recent report; significant performance drops were tracked when test units were linked up with AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or 5600 CPUs—relative to a more modern rig; powered by Team Red's Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Additionally, evaluators observed worrying signs when B580 cards were tested on platforms based on Intel's 9th Gen Core i5-9600K processor.

Budget-conscious buyers have embraced Team Blue's new generation cards, with many participants upgrading older builds with Intel Arc B580 12 GB and B570 10 GB graphics cards (original launch MSRPs: $250 and $220, respectively). Given that many owners will be sticking with prior-gen processors, industry watchdogs have leveled criticism at Team Blue—the company has disappointed many, with an apparent lack of action. Months after the fact—likely after a healthy intake of community feedback—Intel has officially acknowledged these issues. As disclosed by RonaldM_Intel's announcement: "thank you for your patience. We are aware of reports of performance sensitivity in some games when paired with older generation processors. We have increased our platform coverage to include more configurations in our validation process, and we are continuing to investigate optimizations."

ASUS and MSI's price hiking of GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards is already a well explored subject matter (news-wise), but GPU market watchdogs have spent time investigating circumstances further down from the perch of NVIDIA's most visible board partner players. Citing evidence presented on the official Team Green subreddit, VideoCardz has levelled criticism in ZOTAC's direction. Apparently, the brand's North American store has—quite recently—jacked up asking prices for its custom GeForce RTX 5090 designs. The Hong Kong-based manufacturer only offers a choice of two models via its US webstore: SOLID OC and AMP Extreme INFINITY. At the time of writing, ZOTAC's webshop is undergoing "construction work"—fortunately, screenshots and crucial points of info were preserved by Redditors and media outlets. The flagship AMP Extreme INFINITY SKU has hit an unprecedented $2999.99 price point, although not reaching the heights of ASUS Astral ($3359.99!). A mid-March Wayback Machine save state reveals a previous RTX 5090 AMP Extreme INFINITY listing at $2599.99, but its initial launch price was $2499.99. Naturally, a flagship design—comprised of a robust cooling solution, fancy features/accessories and ARGB lighting—demands a premium upcharge, but ZOTAC's top-tier SKU is priced $1001 above Team Green's $1999 MSRP baseline.

ZOTAC's GeForce RTX 5090 SOLID (non-OC) SKU was supposed to act as the "barebones" baseline MSRP-conformant model, but price watchers noted that ZOTAC USA had removed this entry from the official webstore. Tom's Hardware reckons that the last recorded cost of ownership was $2199.99. ZOTAC's next best option is the brand's factory-overclocked variant—GeForce RTX 5090 SOLID OC—now adjusted up to $2699.99. Launch pricing was somewhere just above $2200, but that figure has changed over time. It was $2369.99, prior to this week—according to a Wayback Machine archived state. As reported last month, ZOTAC rolled out a "Priority Access Campaign" via Discord—this anti-scalping strategy received praise upon initiation, but VideoCardz's watchful eye has kept track of very few successful transactions. According to their latest investigative piece, a "top secret" ZOTAC Discord group was formed—this separate elite member-focused channel offers even "easier access" to coveted cutting-edge gaming graphics card.

Today, KOEI TECMO and developer Team NINJA announced that their open-world action RPG, Rise of the Ronin, is now available digitally on Windows PC via Steam. Originally released for PlayStation 5, the epic Bakumatsu era tale takes players on a historic journey where a masterless warrior, a ronin, must fight to forge their own destiny through the chaos of war and political unrest. The Steam version supports various PC features, including ultra-wide monitor combatibility, 8K resolution, 120 FPS, 3D audio, and more.

In Rise of the Ronin, fans will play as a ronin in 1863 Japan in turmoil. With Japan's fate now in their hands, players will encounter various historical figures and factions with differing ideologies, and make significant decisions such as whether to confront or defend them. Players will also be able to form special relationships with some characters thanks to the "Veiled Vow" system, which will allow them to freely shape their own experience of the Bakumatsu period.

Samsung Electronics is taking a close look at its chip design and foundry operations. This action could lead to organizational restructuring, including executive reassignments and workforce reallocation. The initiative aims to strengthen Samsung's competitive position against industry leaders such as TSMC. In January, the company's executives initiated an in-depth evaluation of the System LSI division, which handles chip design. After that, the company plans to extend the review to its foundry business. Significant restructuring may occur within the System LSI division, one proposal involves transferring the Exynos system-on-chip (SoC) business to the Mobile Experience (MX) division to better align with Samsung's smartphone strategy.

Samsung is also evaluating the potential pause of investments in its Pyeongtaek (South Korea) and Taylor (US) manufacturing facilities for its foundry business. At the same time, the company is developing strategies to improve yield rates in its advanced manufacturing processes. Moreover, Samsung is also considering changes within its image sensor business, potentially shifting focus from high-resolution sensors toward products for autonomous vehicles and robotics applications. This action represents the first major internal assessment since Samsung established its management analysis department in November 2024. The primary objective is to revitalize underperforming business divisions.

The new ASUS ROG Astral graphics card design debuted last month, with the rollout of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 "Blackwell" GPUs. The flagship model—in overclocked form—is not a wallet-friendly prospect; as highlighted by W1zzard's in-depth evaluation. The "astronomically-priced" premium-tier quad-fan model is a hot property; in more ways than one—late last week, an unfortunate ownership experience was shared online. NVIDIA subreddit member—Impossible-Weight485—uploaded photo evidence, accompanied by a short story: "I was playing PC games this afternoon, and when I was done with the games, my PC suddenly shut down while I was browsing websites. When I restarted the PC, the GPU caught on fire, and smoke started coming out. When I took out the GPU, I saw burn marks on both the GPU and the motherboard." Post-absorption, initial community and press feedback posited that the problem originated with a Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor (MLCC), located not far from the card's PCI-E interface.

High-profile figures soon swooped in, with different theories and offers. A Team Green subreddit moderator weighed in: "not adding this one to our GeForce RTX 50 Series 12VHPWR Megathread. This looks to be a blown power phase, and not melting power connector. The original poster provided additional photos of the cable, in addition to the GPU connector photo in the post. Both looks pristine...Yes, I watched Buildzoid's video (see below), hence updating this comment...Thanks to Buildzoid for the education!" The owner uploaded another interior shot, seemingly showing burn damage on their ASUS ROG CROSSHAIR X870E HERO motherboard. The severity of this incident attracted the attention of Gamers Nexus—Lelldorianx (aka Stephen Burke) reached out to the damaged card's owner: "messaging you. We'd buy the board and GPU from you if you want to just take the cash and buy something else (or) skip the RMA process." Burke and his colleagues are actively investigating various GeForce RTX 50-series "pratfalls"—earlier this month, reports indicated that the team was already engaged in the sourcing of problematic units.

Hello everyone, I'm Yonghe Wang—Creative Director at Pollard Studios, I am very excited to announce on behalf of my team and our publisher Wired Productions that Karma: The Dark World will be launching on PC, PlayStation, XBOX, and Nintendo Switch on March 27. The game will also support PS5 Pro enhancements. To celebrate, we thought we would share a breakdown of how the team is making the most of the PS5 Pro features to enhance the games visuals and performance—and to share the second in a trilogy of trailers—showcasing some of the surreal environments and characters in the game hinting at their relationship to you - the player. Please Enjoy!

What Is Karma: The Dark World?
Karma: The Dark World is a first-person cinematic psychological thriller which takes place in a cassette future alternate timeline set after World War II. In our game, a company known as Leviathan obtained unfathomable technology that allowed them to wrestle Eastern Germany under their control, installing a regime that oppresses the citizens and places productivity and obedience as gospel.

Popular router manufacturer TP-Link is being investigated by US authorities over an alleged connection to cyberattacks emanating from the PRC. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Commerce, Justice and Defense departments are all investigating the company and the Commerce Department has gone as far as issuing a subpoena to TP-Link. The WSJ states that TP-Link holds close to a 65 percent market share in the US consumer router market, which puts the company in a unique market position.

The end results of the investigations, assuming either US authority finds any wrongdoings, could lead to TP-Link being banned from selling its routers in the US. A spokeswoman for TP-Link in the US issued the following statement to the WSJ "We welcome any opportunities to engage with the U.S. government to demonstrate that our security practices are fully in line with industry security standards, and to demonstrate our ongoing commitment to the U.S. market, U.S. consumers, and addressing U.S. national security risks".

Welcome to the second to last full week of the year of 2024 and hopefully the last week in the office for most of you. This week's major release revolves around Xenomorphs, but unfortunately requires a VR-headset, but if you've been nice, maybe Santa will bring you one? The rest of this week's new releases turns you into an animal detective, being in charge of a pirate ship, being a young car mechanic in Poland in the 90's, a viking adventure in the netherworld and finally trying to solve some late night crimes in the Victorian era.

Alien: Rogue Incursion / This week's major release / Thursday 19 December / VR Game
Experience the universe of the Alien films like never before: in terrifyingly immersive single-player VR. An all-new action-horror entry into the classic franchise, Alien: Rogue Incursion transforms you into Zula Hendricks-the ex-Colonial Marine hellbent on exposing Weyland-Yutani's black-site experiments-on an extremely dangerous mission to the uncharted planet Purdan. With her synth companion Davis 01 for guidance, Zula must infiltrate the infested Gemini Exoplanet Solutions research facility and survive the ever-present threat of the most cunning Xenomorphs ever encountered, with both skilled stealth and serious firepower at her disposal. And when the threat she discovers has extinction-level consequences, Zula suddenly finds herself with humanity's fate on her shoulders. Steam link

The U.S. Department of Justice has stepped up its probe into NVIDIA and several other companies in the hopes of gaining evidence that NVIDIA could have violated antitrust laws. The DOJ moved from sending questionnaires to issuing subpoenas requiring recipients to provide more information. This puts the government one step closer to potentially filing a formal complaint. Antitrust officials are concerned that NVIDIA might be making it difficult for customers to switch to other suppliers and could be penalizing those who don't exclusively use its AI chips, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The probe, which first came to light in June via Bloomberg, has seen investigators reaching out to other tech companies for information. The DOJ's San Francisco office is leading the inquiry, though the department has declined to comment publicly on the matter. In response to the investigation, NVIDIA said in an emailed statement that its market dominance is due to the superior quality and performance of its products. "NVIDIA wins on merit, as reflected in our benchmark results and value to customers, who can choose whatever solution is best for them".

Law firm, Abington Cole + Ellery, is investigating a potential class action lawsuit against Intel due to instability issues in their 13th and 14th Gen CPUs. Intel has acknowledged the problem, stating that elevated operating voltage caused by a microcode algorithm is resulting in instability. While Intel promises a patch, it won't prevent damage already done to affected chips.

Intel has offered to replace damaged CPUs, which could potentially undermine the basis for a lawsuit if the company is honoring this commitment effectively. However, user experiences with Intel's RMA service vary widely, with some reporting smooth replacements and others facing delays or complications. Intel claims to support all affected customers, including those with tray processors, but advises contacting system vendors for pre-built systems.

Long-term reliability issues continue to plague Intel's 13th Gen and 14th Gen Core desktop processors based on the "Raptor Lake" microarchitecture, with users complaining that their processors have become unstable with heavy processing workloads, such as games. This includes the chips that have minor levels of performance tuning or overclocking. Intel had earlier isolated many of these stability issues to faulty CPU core frequency boosting algorithms, which it addressed through updates to the processor microcode that it got motherboard- and prebuilt manufacturers to distribute as UEFI firmware updates. The company has now come out with new findings of what could be causing these issues.

In a statement Intel posted on its website on Monday (22/07), the company said that it has been investigating the processors returned to it by users under warranty claims (which it has been replacing under the terms of its warranty). It has found that faulty processor microcode has been causing the processors to operate under excessive core voltages, leading to their structural degradation over time. "We have determined that elevated operating voltage is causing instability issues in some 13th/14th Gen desktop processors. Our analysis of returned processors confirms that the elevated operating voltage is stemming from a microcode algorithm resulting in incorrect voltage requests to the processor."

Hey everyone, today's update for Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition on PC includes crash fixes, various bug fixes, and improvements based on player feedback. Since the launch of the game last week, we've been closely monitoring our crash reporting system and investigating crashes submitted through our support channel. This patch includes several crash fixes and changes to further improve stability.

We've also fixed several bugs, including one that prevented players from claiming rewards at the Hunting Grounds when using mouse and keyboard controls. This patch also fixes the HDR Max Luminance slider and enables DLSS 3 Frame Generation during cutscenes. Check out the release notes below for more details. The teams at Nixxes and Guerrilla continue to closely monitor player feedback. We are aware of other issues raised by the community and are actively working on future patches with further bug fixes and optimizations.

The Professional Gamers League (PGL) showcased its newly upgraded tournament rig specification prior to the kick-off of their (still ongoing) CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 esports event. As reported, over a week ago, competitors have been treated to modern systems decked out with AMD's popular gaming-oriented Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards, while BenQ's ZOWIE XL2566K 24.5" 360 Hz gaming monitor delivers a superfast visual feed. A hefty chunk of change has been spent on new hardware, but expensive cutting-edge tech can falter. Virtus.pro team member—Jame—experienced a major software crash during a match against rival group, G2.

PCGamesN noted that this frustrating incident ended the affected team's chance to grab a substantial cash reward. Their report put a spotlight on this unfortunate moment: "in the second round of a best of three, Virtus Pro were a few rounds away from qualifying for the playoffs, only for their aspirations to be squashed through no fault of their own...Jame experiences a graphics card driver crash that irrecoverably steers the round in G2's favor, culminating in Virtus Pro losing the match 11-13. Virtus Pro would then go on to lose the subsequent tie-break match as the round was not replayed. In effect, the graphics card driver crash partly cost the team their chance at winning an eventual $1.25 million prize pool." PGL revealed, via a social media post, that officials are doing some detective work: "we wish to clarify the situation involving Jame during the second map, Inferno, in the series against G2. A technical malfunction occurred due to an NVIDIA driver crash, resulting in a game crash. We are continuing our investigation into the matter." The new tournament rigs were "meticulously optimized" and tested in the weeks leading up to CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024—it is believed that the driver crash was a random anomaly. PGL and NVIDIA are currently working on a way to "identify and fix the issue."

To all Dragon's Dogma 2 players. We would like to update you on the status of the following items, about which we have received numerous comments from the community. To all those looking forward to this game, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

Regarding Frame Rate
A large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in various areas. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate. We are aware that in such situations, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have a limited effect; however, we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future.

Intel's Xeon Sapphire Rapids CPU series has had a bumpy ride so far, with the discovery of bugs resulting in delays pushing proceedings back by more than two years. Units have been shipping out for the past couple of months, but Team Blue ran into more issues in late June—a subset of fourth Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) could interrupt normal system operation under certain conditions. Intel confirmed to Tom's Hardware that they were actively investigating the latest bugs, and had paused shipment of affected MCC die-based models (featuring up to 32 cores).

The publication has very recently received an update from their contact at Intel. A company spokesperson stated: "Last week, we informed you (Tom's Hardware) of an issue on a subset of 4th Generation Intel Xeon Medium Core Count Processors (SPR-MCC) that could interrupt system operation under certain conditions. Out of an abundance of caution, we temporarily paused some SPR-MCC shipments while we thoroughly evaluated a firmware mitigation. We are now confident the firmware mitigation addresses the issue. We have resumed shipping all versions of SPR-MCC and are working with customers to deploy the firmware as needed." Specifics about the latest mitigations efforts have not been divulged, but Intel is confident that these fixes will not impact processor performance.

According to investigations undertaken by Igor's Lab and Hardware Busters this week it seems that AMD's problematic lineup of Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs are consuming unexpected levels of power in short bursts when running in idle mode. In conducting more in-depth tests over the past few days, Igor Wallossek and (outgoing TPU PSU expert) Aristeidis Bitziopoulos have both found that that the aforementioned AMD processors are producing (to the testers' slight concern) power spikes in situations involving minimal computing activity. It is not currently known whether the sharp climbs in power consumption are in any way related to the burnout issues experienced by unlucky overclockers this week.

Aris/crmaris (at Hardware Busters) says that he has tested many of the affected processors in the past, but was not privy to any major problems relating to burnout or power consumption spikes. By running new tests this week, using his own Powenetics v2 board, Aris has found out that: "There are some interesting facts here, which I didn't pay much attention to during the reviews because I only look at the average values and not the peak ones in idle. In the 7950X3D, there is a high spike during idle at 130 W, which is unjustified because the peak CPU load is only 3.53%. Even with the Curve Optimized enabled and a -15 setting, the idle power spike is close to 125 W, so something is happening there. On the 7800X3D, the spike during idle stays low, but this is not the case for the 7900X, which has an idle power spike at 109 W, while the peak CPU load at idle was at 5.12%, so these 109 W are not justified, either."

A few days ago, we found out that NVIDIA corporation has been hacked and that attackers managed to steal around 1 TB of sensitive data from the company. This includes various kinds of files like GPU driver and GPU firmware source codes and something a bit more interesting. The LAPSUS$ hacking group responsible for the attack is now threatening to "help mining and gaming community" by releasing a bypass solution for the Lite Hash Rate (LHR) GPU hash rate limiter. As the group notes, the full LHR V2 workaround for anything between GA102-GA104 is on sale and is ready for further spreading.

Additionally, the hacking group is making blackmailing claims that the company should remove the LHR from its software or share details of the "hw folder," presumably a hardware folder with various confidential schematics and hardware information. NVIDIA did not respond to these claims and had no official statement regarding the situation other than acknowledging that they are investigating an incident.Update 01:01 UTC: The hackers have released part of their files to the public. It's a 18.8 GB RAR file, which uncompresses to over 400,000 (!) files occupying 75 GB, it's mostly source code.

Intel on Thursday was hit by a massive data-breach, with someone on Twitter posting links to an archive that contains the dump of the breach - a 20-gigabyte treasure chest that includes - but not limited to - Intel Management Engine bringup guides, flashing tools, samples; source code of Consumer Electronics Firmware Development Kit (CEFDK); silicon and FSP source packages for various platforms; an assortment of development and debugging tools; Simics simulation for "Rocket Lake S" and other platforms; a wealth of roadmaps and other documents; shcematics, documents, tools, and firmware for "Tiger Lake," Intel Trace Hub + decoder files for various Intel ME versions; "Elkhart Lake" silicon reference and sample code; Bootguard SDK, "Snow Ridge" simulator; design schematics of various products; etc.

The most fascinating part of the leak is the person points to the possibility of Intel laying backdoors in its code and designs - a very tinfoil hat though likely possibility in the post-9/11 world. Intel in a comment to Tom's Hardware denied that its security apparatus had been compromised, and instead blamed someone with access to this information for downloading the data. "We are investigating this situation. The information appears to come from the Intel Resource and Design Center, which hosts information for use by our customers, partners and other external parties who have registered for access. We believe an individual with access downloaded and shared this data," a company spox said.

Optical disc drives are components buyers are least bothered about, when purchasing parts to build a PC, or replace a broken one. The EU's regulators have found something fishy even with companies making these roughly-20€ PC components. According to the European Commission (EC), 13 optical disc drive vendors may have conspired to fix prices of their products on a global scale, and that affects European consumers, as well.

The EC is investigating 13 drive suppliers, and 2 major PC OEMs (pre-built PC vendors), for conducting and participating in what is known as bid rigging scheme, a serious antitrust violation. In bid rigging schemes, the bidders and contractees conspire to rig their prices so that a particular supplier wins the bid. Penalties for such a violation include 10% of worldwide turnover set as fines.

From the launch day server meltdown to the way everyone you know seems to be playing, it's pretty clear that Diablo III is quite popular. But just how popular? Blizzard announced today that it sold 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, which supposedly makes it the fastest-selling PC game of all time. On top of those 3.5 million copies were another 1.2 million doled out free to World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers. After a week, Blizzard says, Diablo III was up to 6.3 million players--not including South Korean game rooms, where it's estimated to have a 39% share. "We're definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," CEO Mike Morhaime said in the announcement.

"We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support." As well as rolling out sneaky little balance updates, Blizzard is investigating reports of nasty hacks, and preparing to launch the real-money auction house on May 29.

After a thorough, independent investigation found significant issues with working conditions at three factories in China operated by Apple's major supplier Foxconn, the Fair Labor Association secured groundbreaking commitments that will reduce working hours to legal limits while protecting pay, improve health and safety conditions, establish a genuine voice for workers, and will monitor on an ongoing basis to verify compliance. The nearly month-long investigation found excessive overtime and problems with overtime compensation; several health and safety risks; and crucial communication gaps that have led to a widespread sense of unsafe working conditions among workers.

"The Fair Labor Association gave Apple's largest supplier the equivalent of a full-body scan through 3,000 staff hours investigating three of its factories and surveying more than 35,000 workers. Apple and its supplier Foxconn have agreed to our prescriptions, and we will verify progress and report publicly," said Auret van Heerden, President and CEO of the Fair Labor Association, a coalition of universities, non-profit organizations and businesses committed to improving the health, safety, fair treatment and respect of workers worldwide.

The Taiwan Criminal Investigation Bureau has been doing a bit of investigating and has arrested four engineers working for Intel's OEM partners (names not disclosed) for flogging Engineering Sample (ES) processors on eBay. ES processors are intended strictly for qualification testing purposes for development of new products by OEM's and are only loaned to them under strict non-disclosure agreements, hence putting these on eBay is illegal. The Bureau searched the suspects houses last month and found 178 ES CPU's, worth around $800,000. Note that this value seems to be somewhat high, as it would make each CPU worth around $4,500. We will update this article if new values come to light. Also, this is not a new operation that has been busted, since the suspects had admitted to selling around 500 ES CPU's since 2009. For their efforts, the fab four now face five years in prison.

It should be noted for anyone contemplating the purchase of such dodgy CPU's on eBay or similar places, that they may be overstressed and contain faults, due to the intensive and sometimes destructive testing they go through.

Gabe Newell of Valve has issued a statement that the forum hack they experienced over the weekend actually goes much deeper than they thought. The criminals accessed the main database containing such goodies as user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. Apparently, no personally identifying information was taken - but we await the result of the full investigation before breathing a sigh of relief. Due to this serious breach, TechPowerUp advises all Steam users to change their account password immediately. People starting up their Steam client will now see the following message from Gabe Newell about this: