“The last payment for your subscription has been rejected”, “Your account has been suspended”… In recent weeks, more and more French people seem to have received a mysterious SMS from Netflix informing them either of the rejection of the payment, or of termination of the subscription. In any case, there would be only one solution: go to a designated website to attempt payment again. But beware: this is… a scam.
Hackers use phishing (phishing, in French), proven many times in other scams (“Your package has been delivered”, “Your Vitale card has been updated”, etc.). They pretend to be a service – here the Netflix video-on-demand platform – create a site that uses its codes and try to steal personal data.
Theft of personal data
The Internet address indicated may be different depending on the SMS messages received. According to a fake site that we were able to visit, it takes Netflix codes and encourages you to log in, with an e-mail or a telephone number and a password. Once this screen is passed, it is indicated a “notification of suspension”. “The last payment for your subscription failed,” it says. A next screen asks for personal information (from address to date of birth), before requesting credit card details. Thus, hackers steal Netflix IDs, personal information, and banking details.
At the end of September, Netflix had already alerted to this risk of scam. “We will NEVER ask you to enter personal information in an e-mail / SMS and make a payment through a supplier or third party site”, wrote the platform on Twitter, also saying “actively work for fight against phishing attempts and the identification of these malicious organizations”.
In a dedicated page, Netflix advises its users who have clicked on one of these links and entered information to modify the password of the account, of other sites using the same email/password combination and to contact your bank. Phishing attempts, via email or SMS, can be emailed to [email protected] to help the video-on-demand platform stop the scam.