Twitch is best known as the platform on which gamers broadcast their video game history live. A massive data leak could pose serious problems for the service purchased from Amazon.
A stranger published a data packet on the network that, according to him, contains the entire programming code of the service. The Amazon subsidiary confirmed unauthorized data access on Wednesday, but initially did not comment on the authenticity of the content. They are working hard to understand the extent, said Twitch on Twitter.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021
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Twitch is mainly used by gamers to broadcast the progress of video games live. The platform produced its own stars that have a large audience.
The published data also includes lists of the alleged earnings of Twitch streamers. Above all, however, the exposure of the entire technical platform could have dangerous consequences. “Since source texts have also been leaked, it can be assumed that these are now being searched for further vulnerabilities by other cyber criminals,” said Rüdiger Trost from the IT security company F-Secure. “It is to be expected that more hacks will likely follow the platform,” he therefore warned.
The published data showed, among other things, a large income gap between the most prominent Twitch streamers, some of whom earn hundreds of thousands of US dollars per month, and less popular users. Several streamers confirmed on Twitter that the leaked information about their earnings was correct. The streamer xQcOW alone earned 752,000 US dollars (650,000 euros) in September.
— KnowSomething (@KnowS0mething) October 6, 2021
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The published programming code also contained references to an as yet unpublished competing service for the popular Steam gaming platform and even internal software tools that are used to simulate hacker attacks on Twitch. “Jeff Bezos paid $ 970 million for it,” wrote the person behind the leak on the 4Chan platform with a swipe at the Amazon boss. “With us it’s free.”
The blog “Platformer” asked previous Twitch developers about the leak. Among other things, they reported that the platform had hardly taken any precautions internally against the downloading of large amounts of software code by employees. Although Amazon, which is known for strong IT security, bought Twitch back in 2014, the platform was still operated with its own security precautions, it was also said.
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