News

Streaming Platform Twitch Hacked & The Hackers Even Leaked Payout Info of Streamers

Shawn Ambrose

2021-10-07 , 12:06 pm

Data breaches are not uncommon these days.

They usually go something like this:

hackers gain access to a company’s data and share it online
customers of the company are outraged
the company that fell victim apologises to its users and promises to ramp up its safety

Then, we move on with our day until the next data breach is reported, and we all start panicking again.

Typically, when these data breaches occur, hackers retrieve a small amount of data from the company.

But in this case, the hacker claims to have leaked the “entirety” of an unfortunate platform.

Streaming Platform Twitch Hacked

The streaming platform Twitch has been hacked and suffered a major data breach.

The anonymous hacker behind the breach claims to have leaked the entirety of Twitch, which is owned by Amazon.

In a post on 4chan where the hacker leaked the stolen data, he said the aim of the leak was to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space” because “their community is a disgusting toxic cesspool”.

Video Games Chronicles broke the news yesterday (6 Oct), adding that a source confirmed the leaked data to be legitimate.

So, what was leaked?

Leaked Entirety of Source Code, Payout Info of Streamers, an Unreleased Video Game Storefront

Among the data leaked is the entirety of Twitch’s source code, which is the fundamental component of any computer program.

It also reportedly included:

years of payout information on Twitch’s most popular streamers
mobile, desktop, and console Twitch clients
proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services used by Twitch
“Every other property that Twitch owns” including IGDB
Twitch internal ‘red teaming’ tools, which were designed to improve security by having staff pretend to be hackers

The hacker even leaked data of Amazon Vapor, an unannounced, unreleased digital gaming storefront that some believe is meant to rival Steam.

Twitch Confirms Leak

Twitch later confirmed on Twitter that a leak occurred on its platform.

“We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us,” it said.

The platform believes that the data could have been obtained as early as Monday (4 Oct).

Twitch Users Should Turn on Two-Factor Authentification

Some netizens who downloaded the leaked data also claimed that encrypted passwords were retrieved as well, and urged users to turn on two-factor authentification.

This way, even if your password has been leaked, your account and details will be safe from bad actors.

To turn on two-factor identification, simply:

Click your avatar and choose Settings
Click Security and Privacy, then scroll down to the Security setting
Follow the instructions to enable Two-Factor Authentication