If you had a bad day yesterday, spare a thought for the executives at Twitch, after the release of a 125GB file containing (according to Video Games Chronicle, which first reported on it) Twitch’s entire source code; details of its payouts to creators since 2019; its mobile, desktop and console software; internal security tools and a seemingly work-in-progress Steam-rivalling game downloads store.
“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,” announced Twitch overnight. “At this time, we have no indication that login credentials have been exposed. We are continuing to investigate.”
If you’re a Twitch user, it’s probably wise to change your password and (if not already done) turn on two-factor authentication anyway. But this is the latest reminder that digital services – even those owned by some of the biggest internet companies – can be vulnerable to malicious attacks and subsequent leaks.
We have decided not to report the leaked creator payouts figures. Obviously they’re easy to find now if you want to, but quoting individual people’s earnings not released by themselves, or through official financial results of their companies, but through a security breach, is a step we’re happy to swerve.
Suffice to say that there are no big surprises: gamers remain the biggest moneymakers on Twitch, but some musicians are building decent revenue streams from their channels. That’s something explored (with the permission of its subjects) earlier this year in the Twitch Rockonomics study that Twitch commissioned from former Spotify chief economist Will Page.
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