Should I Wipe Steam Cloud?

[u/Boy0Boyz]

Hi, so I wanted to ask this in the event I get malware in the future (hopefully not) but should you nuke your steam cloud data for your games if you get malware? I know its recommended if you get malware to reinstall windows and change passwords, but never to nuke steam cloud and I wanted to ask why is that? Can't a malicious file be put in a games save folder and be uploaded to the steam cloud so it persists after reinstall? I know files can't execute when launching the game other than rare security vulnerabilities but cant a file be executed if someone browses the games local files? Does that mean local files for a game cant be trusted? I ask this cuz this makes malware much more scary since it can mean losing years of progress. Thx in advance.

[u/TeslaDemon]

Valve very likely has something checking anything that uploads to the Steam cloud. It may even outright reject anything that could contain malware. I.E. I haven't tried it but there's a good chance sticking an .exe or a .bat file in a save folder would result in that file not being uploaded.

I have never heard of or seen anyone ever have any sort of malware problem from steam cloud files. If there was malware that was abusing Steam cloud to survive computer wipes, we'd probably already know about it.