Dubbed "teraleak" due to its substantial 1.2TB cache, a major data breach has laid bare Apple's TestFlight archives from 2012 to 2015. This breach not only reveals early versions of games that later saw official releases but also brings to light legacy titles that had vanished from the App Store. The leak originated from the Wayback Machine, an internet archive that accessed server files of vintage titles.

@TeraLeak, an X user, stumbled upon archived TestFlight data on Apple's servers using the Wayback Machine and shared the findings anonymously on X and various social media platforms. The post provides multiple archive links, allowing users to delve into information about iOS apps from the period between 2012 and 2015. The method through which this data was extracted from Apple's servers remains unclear.

TestFlight, Apple's online service for beta testing, streamlines the process of launching apps for testing purposes, enabling developers to invite users, gather feedback, and refine their apps before an official release. Before Apple's acquisition in early 2014, TestFlight served as a platform for developers to test apps on both iOS and Android. The archived data indicates that Apple closed down the original TestFlightApp.com website in February 2015, with its cache uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Archive Team in March 2015—remaining largely unnoticed until now.

Despite TestFlight's 90-day window for active builds, teraleak has exposed data for games dating back over a decade, presenting thousands of apps and games in their prototype forms as IPA files.

While TestFlight primarily facilitates external beta testing, it also accommodates up to 100 internal staff members for testing studio games during the iterative process. This raises the possibility of certain games being leaked without external beta testing. Additionally, considering the IPA files of delisted games, earlier builds may now be playable again through sideloading.

Source: adapted form an article by Sophie Blake, Author of Archives for Mobile Marketing Reads.