" alt="" title=""/>Amazon’s popular live video streaming platform Twitch said hackers broke into its network on Wednesday after reports of confidential company information leaked online.
The service, where users often stream live video games, confirmed the break-in on Twitter.
“We can confirm that a violation has taken place,” said Twitch in a post from its verified Twitter account.
“Our teams are working hard to understand the extent of this.”
We can confirm that a violation has taken place. Our teams are working flat out to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as additional information becomes available. Thank you for joining us.
– Twitch (@Twitch) October 6, 2021 ×
The explanation came after reports surfaced that a massive dump of Twitch data was posted on the anonymous forum 4Chan.
A post on 4Chan provided 125 gigabytes of data that was reported to contain Twitch source code, records of payouts to streamers, and a digital video game distribution service developed by Amazon Game Studios.
It didn’t appear that there was any personal Twitch user data on the dump, but the extent of the hack was still being investigated.
Google searches for “how to delete Twitch” increased eightfold when news of the hack spread, according to marketing analyst N. Rich.
“With such a worrying data breach from such a widespread and global platform as Twitch, users naturally want to protect themselves and their data as quickly as possible,” said a N.Rich spokesman.
The person who released the stolen data pool left a message claiming that the break-in was carried out to encourage competition in video streaming and that the Twitch community is “a disgusting, toxic sewer,” according to media reports.
Users of Twitch, the world’s largest video game streaming site, held a virtual strike last month to voice their outrage over racist, sexist and homophobic slurs on the platform.
The phenomenon of “hate attacks” – floods of abuse – has made the platform more and more uncomfortable for many Twitch streamers who are neither white nor straight.
A Twitter hashtag, #TwitchDoBetter, has become a magnet for complaints over the past month, mostly from female, non-white, and LGBTQ gamers who say Twitch fails to stop internet trolls running amok – and all while taking 50 percent of the streamers’ revenue.
Twitch has claimed that it is working to improve the tools it uses to protect accounts from abuse.
The service is suing two users in a US federal court, accusing them of staging the so-called “hate attacks”.
