The doorbell rings, the pizza is here – what is the start of a cozy evening for many is increasingly a nasty form of harassment for Twitch streamers: namely, when dozens of orders are sent to their address without them having ordered anything at all.
What is this scheme with the pizza? Twitch streamers have been increasingly harassed by massive food orders for some time now. We have already reported on the so-called food raids on MeinMMO.
According to research by the ARD political magazine Kontraste and the game, a group of cybercriminals is behind these attacks on content creators. They are said to call themselves “NWO” and are also behind swatting incidents affecting 132 Twitch streamers. Here, victims are harassed by police or other emergency services due to fabricated emergency situations.
As Tagesschau now reports, the perpetrators are said to use specially developed software to harass streamers with such food orders. They refer to it as “pizza bombings”.
Perpetrators boast about “Pizzageddon”
Where do the information come from? As reported by Tagesschau, Kontraste and Spiegel have a “huge dataset” that was partially provided to the editorial teams by the internet activist and cyber security specialist “Nella”. Nella shares her work with her more than 100,000 followers on X.
Among the collected data are also voice recordings in which perpetrators boast: “I don’t want to know how many pizzas I’ve ordered alone since last summer. … caused a real ‘Pizzageddon’ in summer.”
Delivery service claims they could prevent most attempts
What kind of software is this? The data indicates that members of “NWO” are said to use a specially developed program called “Pizzerando” to place mass orders with the well-known delivery service Lieferando.
Affected individuals accuse Lieferando of not doing enough against the pizza bombings. Perpetrators are said to be able to place up to 100 orders within a minute to an address, a streamer told Tagesschau.
The delivery service explained to Kontraste and Spiegel that they are indeed taking action against these cyber attacks: “Through advanced security systems and specialized teams, we prevent most attempts,” a spokesman for Lieferando said.
They also stated that they work with authorities in specific cases. Additionally, they refer to the possibility of having one’s address blocked for deliveries. Furthermore, the delivery service intends to adapt its measures to the ongoing development of the program.
However, affected individuals reported to Tagesschau that there allegedly is no system to block one’s address. When they contacted the portal, they were instead told to contact the police.
The organization TeamKompass e.V. is dedicated to raising awareness about hate raids and works with those affected to protect their privacy and online appearances. MeinMMO spoke with representatives from TeamKompass. You can find the interview here: From fraud to severe threats – How hate raids make Twitch unsafe and how to protect yourself from them
