Beware the Netflix Phishing Scam

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I recently ran across a story on the Malwarebytes Unpacked blog, a site maintained by a computer security company dedicated to the belief that “everyone has a fundamental right to a malware-free existence.” The story brings to our attention a new flavor of the ‘computer support – you have malware -let me unlock your computer for you scam’ that was the subject of a post I did last summer. Although the scam itself is similar to the ones we have been talking about here lately, I wanted to bring it to your attention because of the hook this one uses.

In this instance, a potential victim goes to the Netflix home page to log in to their account and, after putting in their login information, are presented with a pop-up informing the user that Netflix had suspended their account because some suspicious activity had been detected. The pop-up displays a phone number and instructs the user to call that number to regain access to your account.

It’s a pretty typical fake tech support center scam when it comes down to it. But because so many of us are regular Netflix users, I wanted to get this out their to help you protect yourself.

Here’s what the pop-up looks like:

Here’s an article about the scam from the British version of Wired.com:
Watch out for this Netflix ‘tech support’ scam

Here’s the original Malware Unpacked blog post about it:
Netflix Phishing Scam leads to Fake Microsoft Tech Support

As always, be careful out there on the Interwebs.