14 DAY TRIAL // The team behind the Twitch streaming service is announcing that it has detected an unauthorized access attempt to some account information associated with its users and that it has decided to take the relatively radical measure of forcing all those who are using the site to change the passwords on their accounts in order to make sure that their data is secure.
All accounts have also been disconnected from both Twitter and YouTube and the company is also saying that all those who use their passwords for other accounts should change it everywhere.
The company is also using the official announcement of the attack to explain how users can create a more secure login for their accounts.
It seems that those who have had their data actually accessed during the security breach are receiving official e-mails from the company.
Compromised data for Twitch users includes the date of birth, the moment and the IP address of the last login, and limited information associated with credit cards, including expiration date, truncated number and type of account used.
The company is not saying whether it has any idea who the culprit might be or what its plans are to strengthen its security in order to make sure that a similar incident does not happen in the future or is at least stopped faster.
Twitch is very important for the gaming industry
The fact that the streaming application has been breached will be problematic for the gaming industry because a majority of the content on the service is linked to video games, including huge amounts of footage for DOTA 2, other MOBAs and Battlefield Hardline in the past few days.
Video is a much more effective marketing tool than text, especially when star gamers are used to play upcoming releases, and big companies are shifting a lot of their promotional efforts towards Twitch.
eSports organizations are also using it to show off matches to those who cannot attend their biggest events.
If the security of the service does not remain solid for a while after this incident, many commercial entities might move away from it and that could allow streaming competitors to gain market share.