Discord hackers impersonating Twitch to bait users into phishing scam

Some Discord users are being tricked into a phishing scam by impersonators pretending to be Twitch, who are sending messages claiming they’ve got an “exclusive partnership” with the communication app for free access to their Nitro services and to Prime.

Discord’s Nitro is a premium subscription service that awards certain perks such as server boosts, higher resolution when video calling, a higher upload limit, and more. It costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 per year, depending on what sub you pay for.

On April 5, users started reporting that impersonators are taking advantage of the service by creating a fake Twitch bot that’s messaging people with claims they’ve partnered up with the app in order to give away free access to it, as well as Prime.

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Fake Twitch bot scamming Discord users

The bot has been PMing users with the message: “Exclusive Partnership. We are super happy to announce that Discord has partnered with Twitch to show some love to our super great users! From April 5 until April 15, all our users will have access to a Nitro Games and will have access for three months to Twitch Prime.”

It also includes a list of steps on how to activate the “free” subscription, telling the interested party to join the app’s Official Events server, and also add the bot to their own private servers – presumably so the impersonators can access personal and private information. The biggest giveaway that it’s a scam on unassuming users is that Nitro Games no longer exists – the service was completely removed from the sub in October 2019.

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People took to Twitter to air their concerns and to warn others not to engage with the bot. “There [is] apparently is a scam bot going around Discord. I got the message too, the name is Twitch#2708. Don’t click the link,” ‘Wiki82725871’ said, alongside a screenshot of the message.

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“Watch out for the phishing scam currently going on,” ‘ACR_Collection’ warned. “Some fake Twitch representative send you links pretending to give you free access to Discord’s Nitro services.”

This apparently isn’t the first time that this has happened, either. Users have been reporting being contacted by the bot since late March, according to Distractify, with the dates being changed to fit whenever it’s sent.

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Discord and Twitch have both yet to speak out about the situation, or stop the bot from targeting people with its phishing scam at the time of writing.