Twitch has released a warning to its users that its streaming video service may have been compromised, potentially exposing data such as names and email addresses in the process.
In blog post on its website, the company said,
We are writing to let you know that there may have been unauthorized access to some Twitch user account information.
For your protection, we have expired passwords and stream keys and have disconnected accounts from Twitter and YouTube. As a result, you will be prompted to create a new password the next time you attempt to log into your Twitch account.
We also recommend that you change your password at any website where you use the same or a similar password. We will communicate directly with affected users with additional details.
Sincerely,
Twitch Staff
According to Twitch, there may have been "unauthorized access" to account information, but they company would not specify how many accounts have been impacted.
As a precaution, the company has set all of its passwords. This means that the next time you log onto the video service, you will be forced to change your password. To further improve its security, the company has also disconnected all accounts from Twitter and YouTube and is recommending that its users change their credentials at any of these connected sites as well.
So what data was potentially stolen? According to the company, names, email addresses and the last IP address users logged in from were potentially taken from their services. Twitch also states that if users provided other types of info such as addresses and dates of birth, those may have been compromised as well.
Twitch quickly rose in popularity in 2013 with the arrival of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One video game consoles, as simple streaming controls made it easier for players to share their video game experiences with the world. Last August, Amazon acquired Twitch for nearly $1 billion.
This news is just the latest in a long line of data breaches that have begun to plague online companies and hackers become more organized and more sophisticated. The Sony breach late year has become the most infamous of all data hacks, but many large companies have fallen victim to hackers in the last few years and the breaches are showing no signs of slowing down.
If you have an account with Twitch, it is recommended that you immediately log on and change your password and change any password of services that you have linked to the video service as well in order to ensure that your account remains safe.
