How a Mumbai-based streamer’s late-night outage exposed an industry blind spot
In late 2023, MelaStream - a regional issues in fraud prevention for entertainment streaming app founded in 2018 and focused on Hindi and regional films - woke up to a wave of customer complaints. For two hours overnight, users reported unexpected logouts, sudden changes to saved playlists, and a handful of social posts claiming “someone else is watching my account.”
MelaStream had 120,000 paying subscribers at the time, an average revenue per user (ARPU) of ₹149 per month, and growing investor interest after a successful Series A. The engineering team initially assumed the issue was a caching bug or a CDN routing problem. What followed changed how they, and several small Indian streamers who watched closely, thought about security.
Why the indie streamer was vulnerable: weak secrets management and exposed APIs
Investigation revealed a chain of small mistakes, not a single catastrophic vulnerability:
- One engineer had committed a development config file to a public GitHub repo seven months earlier. The file contained an API key with moderate privileges for the internal streaming backend. That key had not been rotated because the team relied on manual rotations triggered by quarterly reviews. The backend API allowed session token creation with limited rate-limiting in place, and it accepted tokens originating from non-production IPs without stricter device binding. Logging and alerting were geared toward uptime and playback metrics, not suspicious authentication flows, so early signs were missed.
The attacker scripted credential stuffing and session token replay using that leaked API key, compromising roughly 6,000 accounts - 5% of the subscriber base. While the breach did not expose payment card data (payments were handled by a third-party gateway), account takeover allowed free viewing, changes to user profiles, and several public social posts that amplified fear.
Two myths were debunked that night. First, "small players are low-value and therefore low-risk" proved false; an attacker can monetize compromised accounts via resales, testing stolen credentials against other services, or simply abusing free access. Second, "we're too small to attract targeted attacks" was also off: the breach appeared opportunistic, born from an exposed key and a lightweight API - a classic supply-chain misstep.
Choosing a layered security overhaul: audits, bug bounty and DevSecOps
MelaStream settled on a layered approach rather than a single fix. Their leadership wanted something that would not only patch the immediate hole but also raise the company’s baseline security posture without killing velocity.
The strategy contained four pillars:
Immediate incident containment and customer remediation - lock down exposed keys, force password resets, and deploy emergency rate limits. Technical hardening - secrets management, stricter authentication, device binding, and a web application firewall (WAF). Process changes - automated scanning in CI, an internal threat model, and a continuous monitoring plan tied to alerts that matter. Community engagement - a small bug bounty program and a transparency communication plan to rebuild trust.This choice reflected a simple principle: mend the roof where it’s leaking, then inspect the attic and foundation. They prioritized fixes that offered measurable risk reduction quickly, while scheduling deeper controls over the next 120 days.
Rolling out the overhaul: a 120-day step-by-step timeline
Implementation followed a tight, documented timeline. The team split tasks into 30-day sprints with clear owners and measurable checkpoints.
Days 0-7: Emergency response
- Revoke the exposed API key and any other keys that used the same permissions. Cost: 0 (internal time). Force password resets for the 6,000 compromised accounts and notify affected users with a clear remediation guide. Communication reduced call volume by 40% versus worst-case projections. Apply temporary rate-limits and stricter session token expiry (from 30 days to 24 hours) for accounts showing abnormal access patterns.
Days 8-30: Containment and visibility
- Enable detailed authentication logging and a small SIEM pipeline that fed events into Slack alerts for suspicious login patterns. Initial SIEM subscription and configuration: ₹2.2 lakh up-front, ₹18,000 per month. Run a focused source-code scan and secret-detection across all repos. The scan found 4 other low-risk exposures picked up during development; all were rotated within 48 hours. Launch a customer-facing transparency page explaining steps taken, plus a voucher of one free month to affected users to rebuild trust. Costed at ₹18 lakh in foregone revenue and marketing.
Days 31-90: Fixes and process hardening
- Introduce a managed secrets store (AWS Secrets Manager) and automate key rotation. Implementation and migration cost: ₹6.5 lakh one-time, monthly ₹6,000. Implement OAuth device binding for streaming sessions and reduce refresh token lifetimes. Engineering effort: 120 engineering-hours. Create CI checks that block commits containing credentials and set up SAST and DAST scanning for critical services. Tooling and training: ₹8.5 lakh. Begin weekly tabletop exercises for incident response with the executive team to shorten decision time by an estimated 40%.
Days 91-120: External validation and continuous improvement
- Open a modest bug bounty program: ₹1,00,000 total annual budget with bounties capped at ₹25,000 per critical report. The program attracted 18 high-value reports in three months. Undergo an external security audit with a recognized firm and patch their top 10 findings within 30 days post-audit. Audit cost: ₹6 lakh. Implement a monthly security health dashboard tying SLOs to security KPIs: mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to remediate (MTTR), and percentage of critical findings closed within SLA.
From 6,000 compromised accounts to zero repeat incidents: measurable results in 6 months
Data tracked before and after the overhaul shows clear, quantifiable returns on the security investment.
Metric Before breach (monthly) After 6 months Active paying subscribers 120,000 128,000 (+6.7%) Complaints related to account takeover ~120/day during the incident week 0/day (no repeat incidents) Churn spike (month of breach) +7% (relative increase) Back to baseline within 3 months Time to detect incidents (MTTD) ~48 hours ~2 hours Incident response cost (one-off) ₹25 lakh Lower ongoing costs: ₹3 lakh/month for monitoring and small bounty payouts New subscriber growth (6 months) +4% QoQ pre-breach +18% QoQ post-program (credit to trust messaging)Key outcomes:
- No repeat account takeover incidents in the six months after the overhaul, despite two attempted credential-stuffing waves that were thwarted by early alerts and automated blocking. Restored consumer trust: a customer satisfaction survey conducted three months after the remediation showed a Net Promoter Score that recovered from -12 (immediately after the breach) to +18. Revenue stabilization and modest growth: the one-off revenue impact of the churn was recovered within four months thanks to retention offers and stronger marketing tied to improved security messaging.
4 security lessons every smaller streamer should learn from this incident
These are practical lessons that came out of MelaStream’s experience, simplified into repeatable rules.
Secrets are the easiest doors to lock or leave open. A leaked key is more dangerous than a single vulnerable endpoint. Treat secrets as first-class assets: rotate often, store in a managed vault, and automate scans in CI. Visibility beats assumption. Small teams often assume “no news is good news.” Instrument authentication paths, unusual geo patterns, and failed login spikes. Logging without alerting is like having a smoke detector and never turning it on. Design short-lived sessions for web and mobile. Long-lived tokens are convenient for users but costly for security. Shorten refresh windows and bind sessions to device fingerprints for risky flows like profile changes or playback from new IP ranges. Trust takes months, but transparency helps. A prompt, honest customer communication and a small goodwill gesture often reduce churn more than opaque statements. In this case, a one-month voucher and an explanation of fixes cut potential losses.How regional streaming services in India can copy this playbook without breaking the bank
Small streamers rarely have unlimited security budgets. Here’s a pragmatic, low-cost sequence to reduce risk quickly.
Quick wins (0-30 days)
- Search all public code and commits for secrets using free tools like GitHub secret scanning or open-source secret-detectors. Rotate any exposed keys immediately. Force password resets for accounts with suspicious activity and increase token expiry for unknown devices. Set up simple rate-limits for authentication endpoints. Many CDNs and API gateways provide this as a built-in feature.
Medium-term (30-90 days)
- Move keys into a managed secrets store. Managed solutions reduce developer friction and automate rotation. Add SAST scans to CI and configure pull-request protections to block merges with high-risk findings. Instrument basic SIEM alerts for authentication anomalies and route those to a shared inbox or Slack channel for triage.
Longer-term (90-180 days)
- Launch a small, targeted bug bounty program or invite vetted security researchers for coordinated disclosure. This often finds business-logic or API flaws automated scanners miss. Create an incident response runbook and rehearse it quarterly so response time shortens when real incidents occur. Consider industry certifications or an external audit if you’re seeking larger distribution deals or investor funding; these raise confidence.
Think of security as maintaining a neighborhood: locks and cameras reduce opportunistic theft, but community rules, quick reporting, and routine patrols cut crime further. You don’t need all the expensive tech at once. Start with doors, then add lighting, then make a neighborhood watch.
Final practical checklist
- Automate secret detection in CI and rotate exposed keys immediately. Reduce token lifetimes and implement device binding for sensitive actions. Enable authentication-centric logging and a small alerting pipeline. Offer clear customer communications and small remediation incentives after incidents. Budget 5-10% of your engineering time in the first year post-incident to security process improvements.
MelaStream learned a hard lesson: small size is no protection when simple operational gaps exist. The good news is that many of the fixes are straightforward, affordable, and cumulative. For India’s regional streaming scene - where differentiation often comes from content and user experience - adopting basic security fundamentals protects both subscribers and the hard-won trust that content platforms rely on.