incidentforTwitchhasbeentakenin-strideandpublic
reactionhasforthemostpartcalmed.Thelatterwas
probablyhelpedbythefactthatthewealthystreamers
whoseTwitchearningswereleakedweren’tparticularly
madaboutit,withmostpointingoutyoucanroughly
calculateit frompubliclyavailablesubscriberdataanyway.
Soit mayhavebeenasbadasit couldpossiblybe,but
there’sanothertakeaway:justhowcommonsuch
incidentsnowfeel,andthegeneralapathythishas
engendered.Didyouremember,forexample,thatTwitch
washackedin2015?
Onepersonwhodoesis Twitch’sformerheadofPR
Chase(nosurname),whonowrunshisowncompany
StreamElements.“Mostmajorplatformsgetbreachedat
leastonce,sohowbrandsreacttoit oftendefinesa
company’sreputationmorethanthebreachitself.”
Twitch’spublicresponsewasfast,dealtwiththebiggest
concerns(nocreditcardinfoorloginsleaked),andafter
theinitialcommunityshockandreactionthingshave
settled.“Thefalloutfromthe 2015 breachdidn’tlastlong,”
saysChase,“withthecommunitymoreupsetabout
havingtoconformtousingmorecomplexpasswordsthan
thebreachitself,sotheywillgetpastthisonetoo.”
Thisis a reminderthatgaming-adjacentaccountsare
anongoingtargetforhackers,andeveryserviceyouuseis
vulnerable. There’s little that you can do other than the
usual steps around password security and having common
sense online. Major hacks of gaming companies are now
just a fact of life and, as such, no wonder they can seem
like background noise. The Twitch hack may yet make a
big bang – at time of writing no part two has arrived, but
could still – but already feels like it’s fading into memory.
Rich Stanton
Highs&Lows
HIGHS
WarThunderfans
Classifieddocumentswereleakedin
a WarThunderforumspat...again.
OculuswithoutFacebook
A 17-year-oldwashacked-offabout
theOculusQuest2’srequirement
fora Facebookaccount,sohecoded
a workaroundcalledOculess.
Corporatekickoff
EAandFIFAhavehada fallingout,
withEAannouncingthatFIFAwill
probablyberebrandednextyear.
Crypto origins
The creator of crytocurrency
Ethereum says he created it because
he was upset by nerfs in WoW.
Navy cyberdefence
The US Navy announced it was
‘hacked’ after one of its ships began
streaming Age of Empires sessions.
Agent KIA
Rockstar finally confirmed what we
all knew anyway: the studio’s game
Agent is not going to happen.
LOWS
Weheard little regarding the
Fablerevival since its
announcement last year, but
in October the Xbox Games
Studios Twitter account appeared to
tease some news for the franchise.
Sadly, it only took a day to un-teasethat
news, deleting tweets and postingwhat
amounted to a “whoops, our bad”. NC
TALL TALES
FABLE FAIL
ISHGARD’S GREATEST
FFXIVACTORDIES
ThehumbleSSDmight
begoodformorethan
storing the latest games,
as tech giant Samsung
has plans to map a human brain
right onto one. That’s right, taking
your brain in itssquishystate and
transferring it tosolidstate, all in the
name of science. JR
REAL-WORLD SOMA
BRAIN COPYING
The Final Fantasy XIV
community paid their
respects to voice actor
Stephen Critchlow, who gave
an outstanding performance as Edmont
de Fortemps. Vigils were held across
servers, with players gathering outside
the character’s house to sit around
campfires and pay their respects. MT
The anonymous
hacker leaked the files
on 4chan and claims it
contains the “entirety
of twitch.tv, with
commit history going
back to its early
beginnings” and “we
have completely
pwned them”.
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