Twitch reveals how it was hacked

midian182

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What just happened? Twitch has responded to yesterday's massive leak that exposed the service's source code, high-profile streamers' earnings, and a lot more. The Amazon-owned site has blamed the incident on "a malicious third party," and confirmed it resulted from an error in a server configuration change.

A 4Chan user posted the 125GB torrent link early Tuesday, saying it was to "foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space" because "their community is a disgusting toxic cesspool." They also included the #DoBetterTwitch hashtag used by female and minority streamers who have been subject to bot-filled hate raids, which led to a group of streamers calling for a 24-hour boycott of the service.

The leak, said to be "part one," included source code for Twitch and its services, comment history going back to 2019, clients, proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services, internal 'red teaming' tools, a VR chat game, and an unreleased Steam competitor, codenamed Vapor, from Amazon Game Studios.

Twitch has now responded to the incident. "We have learned that some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by a malicious third party. Our teams are working with urgency to investigate the incident," reads the company's statement, which you can read in its entirety below.

There were reports that the leak included encrypted passwords, and some recommended users change their logins while also enabling two-factor authentication and resetting their stream keys. The company says it has now reset all stream keys 'out of an abundance of caution.'

Twitch says that there is no indication login credentials have been exposed. Additionally, full credit card numbers were safe as they are not stored by Twitch.

Part of the leak revealed the millions of dollars earned by the top streamers on Twitch. Popular Canadian streamer Félix Lengyel, better known as xQcOW, made almost $8.5 million between August 2019 and October 2021---and that's just from Twitch; it doesn't include sponsorships.

But some of those who made the high-earners list are wondering why people seem so surprised by how much they make. "The strangest thing about people being shocked to learn how much certain Twitch streamers have earned is that the information has always been publicly available," wrote Alanah Pearce.

Twitch's full statement:

We have learned that some data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by a malicious third party. Our teams are working with urgency to investigate the incident.

As the investigation is ongoing, we are still in the process of understanding the impact in detail. We understand that this situation raises concerns, and we want to address some of those here while our investigation continues.

At this time, we have no indication that login credentials have been exposed. We are continuing to investigate.

Additionally, full credit card numbers are not stored by Twitch, so full credit card numbers were not exposed.

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I think people were surprised (this includes myself) with the amount of money they make because this DOESN'T include donations, sponsorships or Merch sales.

Most streamers and YouTubers go on about how they make very little money directly from Twitch / YouTube and most of their money comes from Sponsorships and Merch.

If 1 million dollars or more over two years is chump change compared to the rest, like, damn!
 
I think people were surprised (this includes myself) with the amount of money they make because this DOESN'T include donations, sponsorships or Merch sales.

Most streamers and YouTubers go on about how they make very little money directly from Twitch / YouTube and most of their money comes from Sponsorships and Merch.

If 1 million dollars or more over two years is chump change compared to the rest, like, damn!
It's not really that much money... the top 0.01% of people on twitch make 7 figures... the rest make peanuts...

Kind of like Hollywood actors... the top ones make 8 figures per movie... the rest are lucky to get lunch money when acting...
 
It's not really that much money... the top 0.01% of people on twitch make 7 figures... the rest make peanuts...

Kind of like Hollywood actors... the top ones make 8 figures per movie... the rest are lucky to get lunch money when acting...
Yeah, I'm fully aware of that, I'm talking about how we don't hear much or anything on how much Merch and Sponsors must make them. The figures aren't that shocking, until you're told that's a fraction of the money they actually bought in from everything else.

I assumed £500k a year would be the highest you could earn from YouTube / Twitch directly and then they made £2mil+ on sponsors and merch.

Turns out it's way more than that.
 
Yeah, I'm fully aware of that, I'm talking about how we don't hear much or anything on how much Merch and Sponsors must make them. The figures aren't that shocking, until you're told that's a fraction of the money they actually bought in from everything else.

I assumed £500k a year would be the highest you could earn from YouTube / Twitch directly and then they made £2mil+ on sponsors and merch.

Turns out it's way more than that.

Here's the thing. Normal monetized streamers on Twitch split sub prices 50/50 with Twitch, a sub is $5. This is normal for your average Affiliate with Twitch. Once Partnered, things can change a bit. Depending on how popular you and viewership you can bring in, which inturn brings in more ad revenue, you can be offered a contract and the typical option on that is now a 70/30 split in the streamers favor. This leak has shown that some of those partnered streamers aren't getting the normal 70/30 split on subs, some are getting 80/20. That is going to cause dissension between partnered streamers on a pay scale. Some may be cool with it, some are going to get jealous and envious, and hilarity will ensue over this.
 
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