Twitch hacking: Streamers' earnings leaked but login details safe, company claims

Twitch confirmed the data breach had occurred in a statement on Wednesday
Twitch confirmed the data breach had occurred in a statement on Wednesday Copyright Twitch / Euronews Next via Canva
By Tom Bateman
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The video streaming site confirmed that it had suffered a data breach after 126GB of source code, streamer payouts and development data was posted to a forum.

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Streaming site Twitch has suffered a major data breach, the Amazon-owned company confirmed late on Wednesday.

Documents including Twitch streamers' earnings, source code for the video streaming site and details of an unreleased Amazon competitor to gaming storefront Steam, codenamed "Vapor," were posted online.

The leak was posted as a 126GB torrent to a forum on 4chan by a user who claimed it would "foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space".

If accurate, the documents show that some of Twitch's top streamers have made millions in revenue from the company in the last two years.

In a blog post published on Wednesday, Twitch said that data had been "exposed to the internet" as the result of a server configuration error, and was "subsequently accessed by a malicious third party".

"Our teams are working with urgency to investigate the incident," the company said.

The company later said it had reset users' stream keys - the unique codes used to broadcast on the site - out of "an abundance of caution".

Streamer earnings leaked

Some Twitch streamers whose earnings were exposed in the leak have confirmed that the details were accurate.

Fortnite streamer BBG Calc told the BBC that “the earnings list got my figure 100 per cent correct".

According to versions of the list posted online, Dungeons and Dragons show Critical Role is Twitch's top earner, with Canadian Overwatch player xQcOW and US political commentator Hasan Piker also ranking highly.

Piker joked about the leak on Twitter

In its update, Twitch did not confirm the details of what had been leaked, saying "we are still in the process of understanding the impact in detail".

However, the company did say that it did not believe users' login credentials had been exposed.

Twitch also said that users' payment details would not have been leaked as the company does not store full payment card numbers.

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