AMD may have leaked out 1.7 million Steam keys for Codemasters' new racing game DiRT 3 by accident after it left various plain text files on its web server containing the keys. The keys were intended to be provided to graphics card manufacturers as promotions for their graphics cards.

Due to a serious lack of security, the keys were downloaded by numerous visitors before the files containing them were taken offline. As you can tell by now, the damage has already been done, and much of those keys have begun proliferating the internet.

Sources note that the reason it was so simple to acquire the keys was due to a lack of a .htaccess file on AMD's web server, a file which commonly hides the contents of a directory and restricts access to users without specific URLs. It goes without saying that the keys should have never been uploaded there in the first place.

Should you manage to somehow acquire one of these keys, we recommend against using them because Steam, Codemasters and AMD are undoubtedly going to resolve the issue by invalidating the keys. Users caught in the crossfire may invariably find their accounts terminated by the service.