Just as Facebook went offline and endured a potential data breach on Monday, Oct. 4, the live video streaming service Twitch fell victim to a data breach on Wednesday, Oct. 6.
Twitch first confirmed the data breach after a user posted Twitch data on 4chan, a message board website that allows users to post anonymously. According to the user, the file contained information on Twitch’s software code and security protocols as well as the earnings of Twitch streamers from 2019 to 2021.
The leaked files report that streamers such as CriticalRole, xQcOW, summit1g, Tfue and NICKMERCS have earned millions of dollars on the live video streaming service. Two users reported to the BBC that their reported earnings were accurate, whereas one person reported that a high-profile user’s earnings were almost accurate.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Twitch’s top 1 percent users made more than half of the money that was distributed to paid users in 2021.
Users have earned a grand total of $889 million from Jan. 2021 to Sept. 2021. Last year, Twitch paid a total of $517 million to users over the same time period.
The development of an online games store, which would act as a competitor to Steam, was also rumored to have been discovered via the leak. According to information contained in the data breach, the store will be called Vapour and it may feature Vapeworld, which would serve as a 3D chat option for users. The online games store is reportedly being created by Amazon Game Studios.
The 4chan post was entitled “twitch leaks part one,” which suggests that the data breach may continue to affect the company and its users.
According to the user who leaked the data, Twitch was targeted so as to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space.” They also described Twitch’s community as “a disgusting toxic cesspool.”
“We have learned that some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by a malicious third party,” the company reported.
The company continued its investigation into the breach on Oct. 7 and noted that they reset stream keys to prevent further security breaches. Resetting the stream keys will protect users against a data breach when they start their next stream.
Twitch emphasized that they are continuing to investigate if users’ login credentials were exposed, but said that “full credit card numbers are not stored by Twitch, so full credit card numbers were not exposed.”
Following the leak, users noticed on Friday, Oct. 8 at 5 a.m. that banner icons of video games were changed to close-up photos of a surprised Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, which is Twitch’s parent company. The issue was resolved a few hours later.
Users are recommended to reset their password, as well as enable two-factor authentication to protect themselves from data breaches. Security experts recommend that users set strong passwords that use 12 or more characters, punctuation marks or other symbols and lower-case and upper-case letters.
