Twitch streaming has become increasingly more popular over the last several years, to the point that it's the most preferred way some people choose to follow their favorite commentators, lets play-ers and other personalities. Not only that, it also serves as a way for both streamers and viewers to interact with one another, as well as providing a new way to check out new games before buying them.

Not everyone uses Twitch, though, but it's definitely hard to deny the impact its had on the way people consume information and view media. Amazon even purchased the company for a large sum.

The popularity, appeal and sense of community Twitch has brought with it is partly what makes today's news all the more frustrating, if not disappointing. It appears that an outside party may have broken through Twitch's security, potentially stealing valuable information from the streaming service's vast amount of users.

Presumably, the breach occurred shortly after scheduled site maintenance, as there was a two hour difference between tweets from the Twitch Support twitter account announcing the maintenance and the information breach.

Twitch hasn't said what info, specifically, was accessed. In a new blog post published earlier today, however, it's explained that steps have been taken to protect users from further harm caused by the breach, and passwords need to be updated - the usual instructions given when faced with an event such as this.

"We are writing to let you know that there may have been unauthorized access to some Twitch user account information.

"For your protection, we have expired passwords and stream keys and have disconnected accounts from Twitter and YouTube. As a result, you will be prompted to create a new password the next time you attempt to log into your Twitch account."

Twitch users are also encouraged to change their passwords at any other websites that share similar log-in credentials. Things are being handled on Twitch's end, so it'd be a shame if anyone was met with other complications at other, unrelated sites they frequent.

Twitch Music Library

Meanwhile, those that have been directly affected will be contacted and offered additional instructions to help recover from any damage experienced. Outside of the blog post, Twitch has yet to say any more regarding the matter, but expect more details to come out when more has been learned about the security breach.

It's never a pleasurable experience when a widely-used service has to stop and defend itself for a while. Thoughts of the Christmas DDoS attacks on PSN and Xbox Live come to mind, for example. Hopefully, only a small number of people were affected (although that's still unfortunate), things will soon return to normal, and fans can look ahead to TwitchCon this September.

Has anyone out there run into issues with their Twitch info today?

Source: Twitch Blog, Twitch Support on Twitter (1), (2)