Twitch, the live streaming e-sports platform owned by Amazon.com that was hacked recently, said an error in server configuration change might have allowed the hacker to leak sensitive information.
In a company blog, Twitch posted: “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.”
The hack came days after Facebook and its related apps were down for almost six hours, reportedly because of “faulty configuration change”.
Twitch, with over 30 million average daily visitors, is a popular platform among video gamers where they interact with users while live streaming content.
Video Games Chronicle had reported that an anonymous hacker had claimed to have leaked Twitch’s data, which was posted to messaging platform 4chan on Wednesday, including the source code and information on its clients like payments made to creators, details of unreleased games, as well as a wide range of other internal software and business details.
About 125GB of data was leaked, including details such as a $9.6 million payout to the voice actors of popular game ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ and $8.4 million to Canadian streamer xQcOW.
The hacker’s motive, according to the Video Games Chronicle report, was to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space”.
Twitch was founded in 2011. Amazon bought the site for $970 million in 2014. According to the Business of Apps website, Twitch made an estimated $2.3bn revenue in 2020, mainly from subscriptions and in-app purchases, with 18.6 billion hours of content consumed.
