It was announced by Twitch that there has been a possible data breach and that users should change their passwords to avoid any data theft.
Twitch is a platform that allows gamers to live stream all of their games over the internet. It was introduced in June 2011 and it focuses on video gaming. It also broadcasts e-sports competitions and other gaming-related events. Twitch is now owned by Amazon, after it purchased the platform in 2014 for a whopping $970 million.
Twitch officials have revealed that the company’s servers might have been hacked and content, such as user’s private information may have been stolen by hackers. Included in that private information are also credit card numbers and credit card expiry dates. Because of this major security breach, Twitch is advising all of its users to change their passwords as soon as possible.
Twitch has explained that it expired all the passwords and stream keys, for the safety of its users and it has linked all of the user accounts to Twitter and YouTube. The next time users are going to try to log in, they are going to be prompted to change their passwords.
Twitch has also sent out mails to all the users who the company think might have been affected by the hack. In the email, the company says hackers may have stolen the user’s email address, the IP address of the last device used, the username and the last four digits of the users’ credit cards and expiration date. The first and last name, home address, phone number and birthday may also have been pilfered.
Twitch highlighted in the email sent to users that they do not process, nor store full credit or debit card information, so the number of the card is safe.
Twitch has not yet revealed how it managed to find the potential hack and the company also refused to estimate how many users have been affected by the security breach.
A little bit over one million of Twitch users stream their games online over the platform. An estimated number of 100 million people from around world are tuning in to watch these livestreams, it was revealed by Twitch in its 2014 annual report.
In terms of peak Internet traffic, Twitch is the fourth biggest website in the world, behind Netflix, Google and Apple. If the security breach did indeed happen, then there is a potential threat that could affect millions of people all over the world.
It was just last week that Twitch went offline for several hours. A spokesperson for the company revealed that the shutdown was due to an internal tech issue and it was in no way related to the hack.
Michael Turner
