Twitch Leakage: 125GB Data Is Freely Available

Liam Alexander 07 Oct 2021

In the digital world, things are not going well this week. After the crash of all Facebook services and many other resources, trouble befell Twitch as well. One of the 4chan anonymous users posted a message with a link to a 125Gb archive, which contained a lot of important information:

• source code of the streaming platform;
• code for console and mobile versions;
• analyzes of potential threats and ways to eliminate them;
• data on planned, but not yet published Amazon projects;
• internal security tools;
• data on payments to top streamers, and much more.

The official reason for the data leak is currently the platform's internal Git server. It is noteworthy that the data folder is marked "first." It means hackers still have hundreds of gigabytes of information, the disclosure of which would cause significant harm to Twitch and its visitors. Whether the attackers plan to publish other archives or it is a ploy to blackmail developers is not yet clear.

Twitch representatives have already stated that they are aware of the leak and are doing everything possible to minimize the negative impact. They drew the users' attention that all available information is anonymous and that there are no passwords and other sensitive data in the archive. However, they highly recommend changing your account settings and enabling two-factor authentication.

The most active users have already studied this information and reported that the streamers CriticalRole, xQcOW, and summit1g are in the top three in terms of payments. Some of those whose data ended up in the archive confirmed its accuracy and reliability.

It was reportedly done to undermine the streaming service's monopoly. How do you think this leak will affect Twitch's future? Will startups take this chance and create a safe analog?