UPDATE: Twitch Reportedly Hacked, Source Code and More Leaked in Huge Data Breach
10/06/2021 11:58 am EDT
UPDATE: Twitch has now responded to the hack and confirmed a breach, though not its extent. The original story, unchanged, appears below.
It would appear that Twitch has been hacked as an anonymous 4chan poster has shared a 125GB torrent that it is claimed includes the source code for Twitch as well as years of creator payouts, and more. As of writing, Twitch has yet to address the massive leak, but is reportedly aware of the breach.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the anonymous 4chan poster claimed that the leak is meant to "foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space" as Twitch's "community is a disgusting toxic cesspool." VGC also reports that an anonymous company source has confirmed that the leaked data is legitimate that that Twitch believes that the data could have been obtained as recently as Monday of this week.
The leak reportedly includes the following information:
- The full entirety of Twitch.tv "with commit history going back to its early beginnings"
- The source code for the mobile, desktop, and console Twitch clients
- Years of details about creator payouts on Twitch going back to 2019
- An unreleased competitor for Steam from Amazon Game Studios codenamed Vapor
- Internal security tools for Twitch
- Code related to proprietary SDKs and services used by Twitch
There are conflicting reports about what sort of personal information about Twitch users the leak might have included. Broadly speaking, the stated goals of the anonymous 4chan poster seem to be about sharing Twitch's own information rather than the personal information of users, but these sorts of massive leaks and data breaches are often associated with the release of encrypted passwords and more. Even if the breach does not actually include personal information or encrypted passwords, it is still likely worth changing your Twitch password and enabling two-factor authentication on your account if you have not already.
In general, Twitch has been dealing with significant harassment on its platform over the past weeks. It added new account verification options at the end of September to combat so-called "hate raids" on the platform. "No one should have to experience malicious and hateful attacks based on who they are or what they stand for," the company stated in August in response to community actions that demanded a response. "This is not the community we want on Twitch, and we want you to know we are working hard to make Twitch a safer place for creators."
What do you make of the reported hack of Twitch? What do you think Twitch will do in response? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk about all things gaming!
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