In a blog post this week Valve noted that it has expanded its Steam Support team and will be strengthening holds on Steam item trading and selling in an effort to combat the theft of Steam accounts and items.

This comes as a follow-up to Valve's December announcement that Steam accounts were being plundered at a rate of 77,000 per month, affording Steam game developers a bit of insight into how valuable the tradable Steam items tied to their games actually were.

Now Valve has confirmed that it will be extending the three-day hold it then implemented on Steam item trades to 15 days, and instituting a similar 15-day hold on Steam Community Market item listings. However, accounts protected by Valve's Steam Guard mobile authenticator tool will be able to conduct such trades/sales instantly, and folks who have been friends on Steam for more than a year will have their trades held for just a single day.

Furthermore, the Steam Support team (which Valve claims it has "significantly" increased in size) will cease restoring items that have been removed from accounts following a successful market transaction or trade.

That means that users who have their accounts hacked and their items sold off without their consent won't be able to get them manually restored, but Valve notes it should also cut down on market fluctuations due to item duplication and keep Steam users from faking account compromises in order to dupe valuable items.