Bank Info? Nah, Hackers Want Your Netflix Login

It’s time to change your Netflix password.

The streaming video service’s worldwide expansion, which took a giant leap forward in January, might have caused an unintended side effect: phishing scams targeting users’ login details in order to fuel the black market for Netflix accounts.

According to a Symantec report(Opens in a new window), attackers redirect users to an official-looking Netflix website that is actually fake. There are various sites focused on specific countries; Brazil and Denmark are particularly hot targets. If the subscriber falls for the ruse and enters his or her log-in details, the hackers capture them and can then sell Netflix access via that account on the black market.

Wait, a black market just for Netflix? Why bother, when hackers seem to have little trouble stealing credit card and bank information to buy whatever they want?

The answer has a lot to do with the January expansion, which saw the streaming service expand to more than 130 new countries. With the massively increased availability of Netflix, there also more users who will be fooled by offers for deeply discounted access. In fact, entire online stores have popped up just to sell Netflix at a discounted price, often as low as 25 cents, according to Symantec’s findings.

The hackers are taking advantage of Netflix’s relatively generous rules on password sharing. Depending on your account settings, up to four people can stream simultaneously from a single account.

In addition to increased phishing, Symantec also uncovered malware campaigns targeted at Netflix. These are garden-variety trojans that, once executed, open the Netflix home page as a decoy and then download Banload, a program that scrubs a computer for banking info.

One thing Netflix users don’t have to worry about, at least for the time being, is the very common ad-based malware that exploits security flaws. That was recently shown to also affect apps like Skype that don’t even run ads inside the browser. Thankfully, Netflix has said they have no plans to implement third-party ads.