Steam bug allowed unlimited free downloads 12 november 2018 A man has been given $20 אלף (£15,500) for discovering a bug inside the steam computer games store that let people download any game gratis. Security researcher artem moskowsky found a flaw in steam's portal for games developers that let anybody generate licence keys free of all expenses. Millions of people use steam to purchase and download games on pc and mac computers. Mr moskowsky told steam owner valve about the bug and it awarded him the money as piece of its bug bounty scheme. Many companies reward people who privately disclose security problems so they may be fixed, fighting games torrents rather than sharing the data online. Drone maker dji in cyber-security row over bug bounty How to gain big bucks hunting cyber-bugs Mr moskowsky told news site the register that he discovered the problem by accident when exploring the steam partner portal. The portal lets game studios generate licence keys for their software, so they may propose a copy to fans or journalists to review. But he found that modifying the request let anybody generate thousands of codes for any game they wanted. These could theoretically be sold online on the dark market. “I managed to bypass the verification of ownership of the game program by changing only one parameter,” he told the register. Valve awarded him $ 15,000 and a $ 5,000 bonus for making the private disclosure. The flaw has since been fixed. Valve said an investigation of its logs did not show that anybody had exploited the bug. Drone maker makes hacking accusations 20 november 2017 How to profit money hunting cyber bugs 7 april 2016