Coordinated Botting Attack on SteamDrops

Last night SteamDrops came under a coordinated botting attack. A network of
alt accounts was systematically abusing the referral system to farm giveaway
entries across the platform. We detected it, investigated it, and banned every
account involved. Here is a full breakdown of what happened and what we did
about it.

What happened

A single operator created a cluster of fake accounts, all referred through the
pool of root accounts to mask abuse using referral keys. Every account in the cluster then entered
the exact same set of giveaways within seconds of each opening — a pattern
no legitimate user produces.

The attack was designed to:

• Multiply the operator's chances of winning by entering with many accounts simultaneously
• Stay under the radar by spreading entries across multiple identities
• Exploit the referral bonus system to redeem game keys which were reserved for legitimate users.

How we caught it

Over the past weeks we have been building internal moderation tooling specifically
for this threat. Last night those tools did exactly what they were built to do.

What we did

• Permanently banned all accounts in the network from SteamDrops
• Voided all entries made by those accounts
• All active giveaways they had entered have been reprocessed with clean entry pools

Public ban transparency report

Going forward, all active site bans are publicly visible at bans

The list shows each banned account, the stated reason, and whether the ban is
permanent or temporary. We believe you have the right to know who has been
removed from the platform and why. Botting and alt abuse harms every legitimate
user competing for the same giveaways — transparency is the least we owe you.

What this means for you

If you entered any giveaway that was affected, your odds have improved — the
inflated entry counts are gone. No legitimate winners were impacted.

If you ever notice suspicious patterns — accounts with no history suddenly
entering everything at the same time, or someone offering referral incentives
off-platform — report it. Our tooling catches the pattern, but tips from the
community help us look in the right places faster.

Thank you to everyone who flagged unusual activity. The platform is cleaner
today because of it.

— The SteamDrops Team