A study reveals that Netflix is the most impersonated brand in terms of scams and cybercrime related to subscription services online.
The headline may seem like a very niche scam to be at the top of, but online subscription services are rolling in dough nowadays. Of that echelon of platforms, streaming services are at the top and just keep on rising by the minute. Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and of course, Netflix form the holy trinity of streaming services that have come to dominate the market nowadays. While Netflix may have the best catalogue of the three, as people have recently started taking note of, it still offers a lot of diversity in terms of movies and TV shows. Originals may not be where Netflix shines (I mean, did anyone see the live action Cowboy Bebop? Yikes), but the platform is definitely considered to be the original online movie and TV streaming experience, ahead of the likes of HBO Go and Hulu. Netflix’s popularity literally turned the platform’s name into a verb, with “Netflix and chill” still being a commonly used phrase. Give it another few months though, it might just finally cycle out of the internet’s vocabulary and we can all get some rest.
KnowBe4 is a cybersecurity firm, and it seems very interested in Netflix. Or, more specifically, what Netflix has to offer in terms of online damage and risk to many netizens across the globe. Of course the platform itself is doing absolutely nothing, short of releasing very, very badly made live-action remakes of popular animated titles, but other culprits have started to appropriate the Netflix name for their own nefarious purposes. As pointed out in this study of theirs, Netflix topped the charts for impersonated brands last year, and it seems that phishing attacks seem to have had a continued interest in the platform across 2021.
Phishing attacks often come in the form of fake webpages, often delivered to a user via the appearance of a very formal looking email. The webpages take multiple different forms. Sometimes, they’ll display an error in payment verification, asking users to enter their credit card details all over again. On other opportunities, they’ll ask the uninitiated to subscribe, maybe by throwing in a deal alongside the entire service. Either way, the means all lead back to the same ends: a user divulges personal information, which usually boils down to their credit card details, and are then left at the mercy of cybercriminals. Boom, your card is overdrawn, and your credit score took a massive hit.
Read next: How to Deal With Personal Data Breaches
The headline may seem like a very niche scam to be at the top of, but online subscription services are rolling in dough nowadays. Of that echelon of platforms, streaming services are at the top and just keep on rising by the minute. Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and of course, Netflix form the holy trinity of streaming services that have come to dominate the market nowadays. While Netflix may have the best catalogue of the three, as people have recently started taking note of, it still offers a lot of diversity in terms of movies and TV shows. Originals may not be where Netflix shines (I mean, did anyone see the live action Cowboy Bebop? Yikes), but the platform is definitely considered to be the original online movie and TV streaming experience, ahead of the likes of HBO Go and Hulu. Netflix’s popularity literally turned the platform’s name into a verb, with “Netflix and chill” still being a commonly used phrase. Give it another few months though, it might just finally cycle out of the internet’s vocabulary and we can all get some rest.
KnowBe4 is a cybersecurity firm, and it seems very interested in Netflix. Or, more specifically, what Netflix has to offer in terms of online damage and risk to many netizens across the globe. Of course the platform itself is doing absolutely nothing, short of releasing very, very badly made live-action remakes of popular animated titles, but other culprits have started to appropriate the Netflix name for their own nefarious purposes. As pointed out in this study of theirs, Netflix topped the charts for impersonated brands last year, and it seems that phishing attacks seem to have had a continued interest in the platform across 2021.
Phishing attacks often come in the form of fake webpages, often delivered to a user via the appearance of a very formal looking email. The webpages take multiple different forms. Sometimes, they’ll display an error in payment verification, asking users to enter their credit card details all over again. On other opportunities, they’ll ask the uninitiated to subscribe, maybe by throwing in a deal alongside the entire service. Either way, the means all lead back to the same ends: a user divulges personal information, which usually boils down to their credit card details, and are then left at the mercy of cybercriminals. Boom, your card is overdrawn, and your credit score took a massive hit.
Read next: How to Deal With Personal Data Breaches