It’s been a rough week for social media platforms. After Facebook went down for literal hours on Monday, Twitch announced on Wednesday that it had been “breached” and were unaware to the extent of it.
Early Wednesday morning, VGC reported that 125 GB of data from Twitch had been leaked on forums. The information reportedly contained source code as well as streamer payment info. Now that Twitch has confirmed that the hack occurred, we need to wait for them to confirm the extent of the damage, but with the original report stating that the leaked information is “all of Twitch,” there are plenty who have understandable concerns.
We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021
How does this Twitch hack impace me?
For the average person, this Twitch hack is hopefully not going to affect them too much. As with most platforms like this, it’s probably a good idea to change the password connected to it and set up some form of Two-Factor Authentication if you haven’t already. If you’re one of those people that uses the same password across multiple sites then you might need to change that one on those other sites as well.
How does this hack impact streamers?
Streamers, like the rest of us, are going to need to double-check some of their passwords. Unfortunately, it sounds like their compensation information may have been lost in the breach. While that exactly means is unclear, reports do state that the information lost includes payment info for some Twitch streamers. While many public figures, such as athletes, are used to having their salaries reported, this has not been the case for streamers.
How will this impact Twitch?
This could be potentially disastrous for Twitch depending on how deep this breach goes. Having many of their proprietary assets, source code, and internal information stolen is one thing, but it runs the risk of doing damage to its relationships with the Twitch community. Twitch has already seen many of its public faces, such as “TimTheTatman” and “Dr. Lupo,” leave for competing streaming services. Having a security breach like this is could make it difficult to convince notable streamers to stick around when other companies are willing to bring them over for more money and a more secure platform.