Last week saw a fairly typical mini-cycle of bad reporting: an anonymous internet account posted a claim that Steam had been hacked and over 89 million passwords were compromised. The data breach was widely reported, and outlets advised users to do the usual: password changes, enable 2FA, etcetera. Except… it turned out the breach never happened.
It could have, of course (it didn't). Large-scale hacks are just a part of contemporary living, and there's no shortage of high-profile examples in any given month. Here in the UK, two of our major high street retailers have recently been the victims of organised hacking, with the Co-Operative's stores having empty shelves for weeks afterwards.
