With more people on furlough, home schooling and students unable to go to university, Britons are spending a lot more time using streaming services. These are becoming so popular since the lockdown that Disney+ has already gained 50 million subscribers since its launch on 24th March and Netflix is targeting a temporary 25% reduction in overall bandwidth consumption in to ease overloaded networks.
And now this surge in usage has led hackers to develop a whole range of scam websites pretending to offer Disney+, Netflix and US-based streaming service Hulu for free. Cybersecurity specialist Mimecast found that Netflix has been a particularly popular service for cyber criminals, with over 700 suspicious domains impersonating the streaming giant in less than a week. Due to Disney+’s recent popularity, Mimecast has also seen websites looking to impersonate the new streaming service.