Game streaming service Twitch gets defaced with pictures of Jeff Bezos after major breach

After the video game streaming service Twitch disclosed a major breach earlier this week, its troubles continued Friday, when hackers reportedly were able to deface it with images of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

For several hours on Friday, background images for popular games including Minecraft and GTA V were replaced on Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, with images of Bezos, The Verge reported.

Earlier this week, Twitch confirmed a major breach. Data was anonymously posted online seemingly revealing the amount of money that popular Twitch streamers make. Other data stolen allegedly included "source code for mobile, desktop and game console Twitch clients; an unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios; and Twitch's internal security tools," Variety writes. A spokesperson for the cybersecurity company Check Point told The New York Times that if Twitch's code was leaked, it could be "disastrous" as that "opens a gigantic door for evildoers to find cracks in the system, lace malware and potentially steal sensitive information."

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It wasn't immediately clear how hackers were able to deface the platform on Friday. But Twitch said on Thursday that its investigation into the data breach is ongoing and that "at this time, we have no indication that login credentials have been exposed." The company also assured users that full credit card numbers could not have been exposed because they aren't stored by Twitch.

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.