Published , by Sam Chandler
Published , by Sam Chandler
Every cloud has a silver lining and it would appear that the security breach at Twitch has resulted in some good. Recent reports indicate that hackers have been using Twitch’s Bit system as a means of laundering money through low-profile Twitch streamers, laundering an approximate $9.8 million. This was discovered due to some investigative work into the data that was leaked in October.
Reported on by Haberler and picked up by Kotaku, the recent Twitch leak that revealed the earnings of streamers has resulted in the discovery of a money laundering scheme. According to Middle East Eye, Turkish livestreamers noted that streamers with small followings were “earning thousands of dollars”, a significantly larger amount than would be expected for content creators with only a dozen or so followers.
How the scam worked is that the hackers would obtain credit card information and then reach out to small time streamers with a proposition. The deal would involve the streamers refunding 80% of the donations to different bank accounts provided by the hackers. By using this method, more than $9.8 million was laundered through 2,400 Turkish streamers over a two year period.
A Turkish streamer called Grimnax revealed on Twitter a conversation between himself and a scammer that took place on Discord. The conversation involved the scammer attempting to set up a similar system mentioned above. Grimnax told Middle East Eye that this sort of scam has been known among the community for a while, but they were unable to get the attention of Twitch or Amazon.
Ahmet Sonuc, a streamer with 1.7 million followers on Twitch, has informed Gursel Tekin, an Istanbul deputy from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, of the laundering. Tekin has now requested that the Financial Crimes Investigation Board investigate the problem.
What started out as a security breach, leading to users needing to reset their passwords and Stream Keys, has evolved into what could become a major investigation into how hackers and criminals utilize Twitch. Keep it locked to Shacknews as we continue to cover this story.