Back in December, I reported on a problem that had plagued Twitch for some time: attackers who pretended to be popular broadcasters and lured people with the promise of giving false information. For now, Twitch still has to solve the problem completely. Instead, it's whack-a-mole played with thousands of counterfeit accounts.
The booklet for playing these fake channels is fine. First, they take the old photo of well-known broadcasters – for example, Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, who moved to Mixer last year and whose presence at Twitch quickly attracted eyebrows – and then hit the “free” skin with no bounds. When you type the corresponding command in the dialog, you will be given a link that should take you to a world of unusual promise CSGO either PUBG skins. Instead, it allows viewers to link their Steam credentials and authorize businesses that swipe all over their skins. Illegal skins can fetch a higher price in real dollars, so for those who are spoilers, there is gold in those double-edged hills. Scammers can also work out the legitimacy of all of this by expanding their viewing experience in a stratosphere with bot viewers and chatbots, who promote illegal broadcasts at the top of Twitch's "browse" section, where you expect to see big keywords.
These stations increase daily, several times a day. For example, while researching and puzzling Twitch during the writing of this story, I came across a Shroud impostor who had over 12,000 viewers. Conversation has moved the robotic pace, with a real chunk of “real” people scrambling for all the sweet, sweet skins that fall on their clothes. This one was blocked about 20 minutes after receiving it, but I've also seen complaints from Twitch viewers about channels like this that remain on the site for hours.
One of the Twitch viewers of choiceDon't remain anonymous Kotaku that they have been using multiple scripts to track scammers in the form of well-known naming schemes and image tech. They say that 2,900 senseless stations have exploded and have been on the ground since December. (Their articles automatically report fake channels on Twitch, which aids in the whack-a-mole company's efforts.)
"I can't say how many people cross this scam, but there must be a lot more because these hypocrites are creating not only new channels, but also new domains that have been reported from another project I use for Google and Cloudflare," he was told by an anonymous Twitter user Kotaku in the email.
Twitch viewers have been trying to warn each other about these scams. When examining an officer Twitch
"It's not a sign that means & # 39; free skins & # 39; misleading people," he tells RiverrowXD Kotaku in the email. "It's true that a channel has 1000+ people (bots) watching a stream of & # 39; sponsored message & # 39; a website that offers free skins, which deceives people … It's an easy scam to fall (for), especially for young people or Be proud or Twitch. You never blame them, either. It's hard to know better when you're new to it and just trying to get into the community by getting cool skins. ”
As for Twitch, the company is taking direct action on counterfeit accounts, but so far, it appears to be reaching justice on the basis of the incident. If it has a more comprehensive plan in place, it won't, because that would give investigators a signal to change their tactics.
"Although we will not share information that may help perpetrators who want to take part in our administration, we regularly review and review our forum to ensure that we speak of current and emerging behavior," a Twitch spokeswoman told Kotaku in the email. We urge users who view these types of radio to report and not engage in suspicious links.
The company also will not disclose any details about the severity of the problem and did not respond to my question on how many users fall for these types of scams. However, it is important to note that scams based on a Steam account have been very effective for many people in the past, at least according to Valve's metrics. Back in 2015, just before any other security measures were introduced, Valve said the robbers account they needed 77,000 accounts a month for illegal trading systems.
The biggest problem Twitch will still address, as revealed by an anonymous user who has been downloading accounts, is that "creating a new Twitch account is very easy. Twitch (checks) if you are a person by sending a five-digit code to your email address that can only be issued with a script."
As long as it's easy, people will keep doing it.
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