Tech
Twitch confirms mass data breach
Live-streaming platform Twitch has been the victim of a large-scale data leak, revealing the earnings of the platform’s top streamers
More than 100 gigabites of data was posted online on Wednesday.
The documents show how many millions Twitch’s top streamers have made from the Amazon-owned company in the past two years.
Twitch confirmed the data breach and said it was “working with urgency” to understand the extent of it.
A massive trove of data was posted by a user on the anonymous message board website 4chan, in what is only part of the breach, according to the user.
The 128 gigabyte file contained the history of Twitch’s source code; proprietary software development kits; an unreleased competitor to Steam, an online games store; programs Twitch was using to test its own security vulnerabilities; and a list of the amount of money that each of the site’s streamers has earned since 2019.
The post was accompanied by the hashtag #DoBetterTwitch, a variation of #TwitchDoBetter, a hashtag used in recent months in response to the rising instances of ‘hate-raids’, where users attack streamers, particularly women and people of colour, with abusive slurs which are spammed in the chat over long periods of time.
The leak has sent the broader Twitch community into a panic.
“All data in there on me is 100% true in terms of payout value info,” tweeted Scott Hellyer, a streamer who goes by the handle tehMorag.
“This is real and will impact people for years.”