Ever since the inception of Steam, Valve has been taking strict measures against players found cheating on the platform, with the help of the Valve Anti Cheat (VAC) system. Last year, the company made it possible for developers to directly ban gamers involved in malpractice. Now, it has made the policy stricter by expanding the scope of the ban.
According to the updated VAC support page, gamers will now be banned on the basis of the linked phone numbers. As a result, those having multiple accounts linked with that number will also be banned from the same game as the original cheater. In case the other accounts do not own the game, they won"t be able to purchase it, while new accounts will not be able to link the same phone number for a period of three months.
Currently, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, one of the most popular multiplayer games on Steam, has enabled the phone number ban. However, it is at the discretion of the developers to introduce it for their games and may not be implemented by everyone. As per the CS: GO blog, the latest update already supports phone bans, so players with known hacks should stay wary.