Valve is getting more aggressive in its approach to dealing with cheaters. Normally when you are banned for cheating, you can just log into a separate account and continue your cheating ways.However, Valve has taken extra steps to beef up its security. If you have a steam account then you more than likely its tied to a phone number for security purposes. Unless you’re Kevin Gates the average has only one phone. If you cheat, any account linked with your phone is now also banned. Well can’t you just change your number or use someone else’s phone? I suppose you could, but then we have a bigger problem than your online integrity. This is the official statement from Valve.

“If an account that has a phone number registered to it receives a VAC or Game ban, all other accounts that used the same phone number at the time of the infraction will also receive a ban. If the other accounts do not own the game they will still receive the ban and be unable to purchase the title on that account. The phone number on an account that receives a ban will be suspended for three months and cannot be applied to another account during that time. The cooldown duration for applying a phone number after a ban will increase each time a cooldown is applied.”