Twitch hack: Massive leak claims to reveal how much creators earn

Hacker claims to want to ‘foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space’

(Getty Imagges)

Online streaming giant Twitch has suffered a major data breach, compromising its underlying source code and details of creator payouts.

An anonymous poster on the controversial messaging board 4chan claims to have gathered three years worth of details relating to payouts on Twitch, as well as the entirety of twitch.tv “with commit history going back to its early beginnings”.

The poster also claims to have hacked Twitch’s internal security tools and code relating to mobile, desktop, and video game console Twitch clients.

“We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this,” a Twitch spokesperson told The Independent.

“We will update the community as soon as additional information is available.”

A 125GB file posted to 4chan, labelled “part one”, also appears to include an unreleased Steam competitor built by Amazon Game Studios.

“This leak appears to be full of highly sensitive data and those affected must act fast to protect their information and identity,” Jake Moore, a security specialist at cyber security firm ESET, told The Independent.

“The leaked source code will also be damaging to Twitch itself, which has remained a highly sought after target, carrying huge judos amongst the criminal hacking community.

“With regular action taken against Twitch, even boycotting of the site and more data to be released, this could be extremely damaging to their reputation as well as financially.”

Mr Moore urged Twitch users to change their passwords on Twitch, as well as any other service that they use a similar password on.

Jarno Niemelä, a researcher at the cyber security firm F-Secure, also warned people with Twitch accounts to review “all information” they have provided to Twitch in case any of it is sensitive.

“While it won’t help in this case as data has already leaked, users should always be cautious on what kind of information they provide to any social media platform,” he said.