Following the news that a phishing campaign has been targeting Netflix users across Australia, with users reporting having been sent an email from an address posing as the legitimate support team for the streaming service asking them to enter their account information and payment details, security experts commented below.
https://twitter.com/HRMS_news/status/1090546780729757697
Dean Ferrando, System Engineer Manager (EMEA) at Tripwire:
“This is just the latest of a series of phishing campaigns that posed as Netflix, which because of its popularity allows criminals to cast a wide net of potential victims. This kind of attacks exploit customer’s trust in brands they can recognise, and are becoming increasingly sophisticated, adding backsplashes and logos to the fake emails to trick victims into clicking on the malicious links.
The best way to avoid falling victim of these scams is to always be on the look for suspicious details that may reveal the email as fictitious, which can be spelling mistakes, poor grammar or a link that directs to a suspicious URL. Reputable brands also often have a support page that helps customers identify and report fake email campaigns and would never ask for personal information or payment details without a reasonable cause.”
Tim Sadler, Co-founder and CEO at Tessian:
“In this case, scammers are using the very familiar and trusted Netflix brand to dupe loyal customers into revealing personal and financial information. Many users will have an established relationship with Netflix and communicate with the brand via email or other messaging platforms. This kind of interaction can engender trust and complacency on the part of the customer. It is the relationship between user and brand, which phishers are attempting to hijack in order to pharm valuable financial credentials.
Strong-form impersonation methods like this, where the attacker is posing as the legitimate Netflix support team with branding and an email format that closely mimics a typical Netflixcommunication, can be difficult for a typical user to identify. However, to minimise the risk of falling victim to scams like this, users must be vigilant. They should be suspicious of any email that requests personal and/ or financial information. It is also important that they alert the necessary authorities if they spot a phishing email in their inbox.”
Corin Imai, Senior Security Advisor at DomainTools:
“Netflix customers seem to be incredibly popular targets for threat actors engaged in phishing campaigns, for good reason; Netflix is a globally renowned business, with an easily identifiable name and logo which a significant amount of consumers will have a relationship with, making them more likely to engage with emails pertaining to be from the brand. Netflix phishing scams in the past have been notoriously sophisticated, such as the 2017 campaign which leveraged Netflix content as backing images to the fraudulent emails and web pages, lulling the victim into a false sense of security. Australian Netflix users should treat any email communication from Netflix suspiciously in order to keep their PII safe, particularly one regarding account suspension.”
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