Strangers Stealing Your Netflix? Here's How to Tell

Netflix lets your streaming account be used by upwardly to four people at a time — but some of those people may exist complete strangers halfway around the earth.

Credit: Scyther5/Shutterstock — (Prototype credit: Scyther5/Shutterstock)

Stolen Netflix business relationship credentials are sold for every bit fiddling as 25 cents apiece wholesale in online black markets, according to U.S. information- security company Symantec. The company says credentials are generally stolen either by phishing emails, or by malware posing as Netflix apps that may likewise steal credentials for online bank accounts.

You lot can cheque your Netflix business relationship for suspicious activity, merely you can't encounter a list of all devices that recently used your business relationship. If you're worried that a stranger is tapping into your Netflix account, you should sign out of all Netflix devices at once, and/or change your countersign.

MORE: Netflix Streaming Guide: Best Movies and TV Shows on Now

Last month, Netflix all of a sudden expanded its streaming service to well-nigh every country in the world, including some nominally hostile to the United states, such every bit Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. The only major exceptions were Syrian arab republic, North Korea and China.

This marketing insurrection likewise means that there are now a lot of potential Netflix customers in poorer countries who tin can't afford to spend $viii a calendar month for access on their Android phones — only can certainly pay a buck or two to the guys running the cellphone shop downward the street. That cut-charge per unit access comes through stolen credentials.

Your account, upwardly for sale

"There is an underground economy targeting users who wish to access Netflix for complimentary or a reduced price," Symantec'due south Lionel Payet wrote in a company blog posting February. 11. "The most common offers are for existing Netflix accounts. These accounts either provide a calendar month of viewing, or give total access to the premium service.

"In well-nigh advertisements for these services, the seller asks the buyer not to change any information on the accounts, such as the password, as it may return them unusable," Payet added. "This is considering a password change would alarm the user who had their account stolen of the compromise."

There are so many stolen Netflix credentials out in that location that Payet's screenshots of online black markets include an advertizing for a tool chosen "NetflixGenerator" that spits out freshly compromised credentials in bulk, for people who want to resell those credentials to terminate users. It tin be accessed for set periods of time -- $10 for a week, $twenty for a month or $30 forever.

"NetflixGenerator is a unique tool that generates freshly cracked accounts," the ad reads. "You lot can generate almost unlimited accounts per day. We update our account listing daily to ensure you get merely the freshest accounts."

The gilded ticket to unlimited streaming

With such a thriving trade in stolen Netflix credentials, online criminals demand to steal more than and more of them.

Payet notes that one method of doing and so involves the practiced old phishing scam — an email bulletin or browser pop-upwards window that says you lot demand to log back into your Netflix account for some reason, then takes you to a faux Netflix login page. Your e-mail address and countersign are sent to criminals, and simply to add injury to insult, the fake page may enquire for your credit-card number equally well.

But Netflix is and then popular, Symantec says, that Trojan-horse malware posing equally Netflix applications has cropped upwardly besides.

"I malware campaign involves malicious files posing every bit Netflix software on compromised computers' desktops," Payet wrote. "The files are downloaders that, once executed, open the Netflix dwelling house folio equally a decoy and secretly download Infostealer.Banload. Banload steals banking information from the affected computer."

Payet added that "the files are most probable downloaded by users who may have been tricked by fake advertisements or offers of free or cheaper access to Netflix."

How to cheque for suspicious Netflix activity, and what to practise virtually information technology

It couldn't injure to log into your Netflix account on a desktop computer and go to the My Activity page.

Come across anything there that you lot're sure that yous, or anyone that you know shares your business relationship, didn't watch? If then, then you'll want to change your countersign at http://www.netflix.com/password. (Brand certain the new password is strong and unique.) The password change will force all users to sign in again with the new countersign.

If yous'd rather non change the password, but want to give freeloaders a scare (and tell the credentials sellers that you lot're on to them), yous can but sign out all devices using your credentials at http://world wide web.netflix.com/ManageDevices. The sign-out process may accept upwards to eight hours to populate to all devices, Netflix says.

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Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom's Guide focused on security and privacy. He has likewise been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than fifteen years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom'southward Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown upward in random Telly news spots and even chastened a panel give-and-take at the CEDIA home-technology conference. Yous tin follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.