SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Twitch, a live streaming service focused on video gaming, confirmed Wednesday that its systems were breached by a hacker.
The San Francisco-based company tweeted that its teams were working quickly to understand the extent of the breach and it will update its community once additional information is available.
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
Wired and The Verge report that an anonymous hacker released what they claim to be a massive cache of proprietary data from Twitch, including source code and the revenue information of the platform’s streamers.
Twitch is owned by Amazon. The online retail giant acquired the company in 2014. Since then, Amazon has tried to combine it with other Prime services, like Amazon Music and Prime Gaming.
Bloomberg and CNBC report that the leak also exposed Amazon’s development of a digital gaming distribution platform, which could be a challenger to the dominant Steam storefront.
Video Games Chronicle reports that the hacker posted a 125 GB torrent link to 4chan Wednesday and the person said the leak was meant to “foster disruption and competition in the online video streaming space,” which the person described as a “disgusting toxic cesspool.”
The video game industry website confirmed the files are publicly available for download.
