Your Twitch Account Is In Serious Danger

Twitch has confirmed that the company experienced a security breach, and your account could be affected. Twitch confirmed on Twitter that hackers breached the company's servers, however, Twitch does not know the full extent of what information was taken as of yet. While it's not clear if passwords were accessed during the breach, it would probably be a smart move to change your Twitch password and enable two-factor authentication if you haven't already.

As reported by VGC, this all started early on October 6, when an anonymous hacker on 4Chan posted a 125GB torrent link claiming to have obtained the entirety of Twitch. The files were confirmed to be available for download publicly and Twitch has since confirmed the legitimacy of these files. The leaked Twitch data includes the website's entire source code, streamer payout reports from 2019, an unreleased Steam competitor, and more. Considering the massive size of the file and the depth of files that have been taken, this breach could have serious, long-term consequences for the streaming giant, both from a tech standpoint and an economic one. Here's what the breach could mean for Twitch.

Twitch has lost one of its biggest advantages as a streaming platform, considering that it historically has not shared how much money its top streamers make. On the BBC, reporter Joe Tidy wrote, "Twitch famously fiercely guards operational details such as how much its streamers are paid, so this looks extremely embarrassing for the company. And it comes at a time when competitors such as YouTube Gaming are offering huge salaries to snap up gaming talent, so the fallout could be significant."

While it is publicly known that twitch stars are insanely rich, and sub counts are also public info, seeing the hard numbers might sway some people's opinion of the platform. According to the leak, 81 streamers were paid more than $1 million since August 2019 (via VGC). It's also important to note that this figure only includes money paid out by Twitch; streamers could make more money from merchandise, sponsorships, and external donations. 

Beyond the payouts, the leaked information about Twitch's servers and internal mechanisms could make the service more susceptible to issues like the ongoing "hate raids" that have been plaguing Twitch. It also lets competitors like YouTube see the tools and systems that Twitch offers and how they function. Regardless of how everything shakes out, Twitch will be dealing with this leak for the foreseeable future.