Intrepid hackers are selling a new kind of product on the Dark Web: lifetime access to Netflix accounts and other streaming services that belong to unsuspecting paying customers. Hackers are charging less than a dollar for each Netflix account the sell, guaranteeing lifetime access, according to a McAfee Labs research report.
The hackers are taking advantage of a popular Netflix feature – users can share their passwords with other people – to sell this particular service on the black market. Meanwhile, chances are that the owners of the Netflix accounts sold on the Dark Web have no idea what’s going on.
Here’s what you can do to find out if you’ve been hacked, and how you can fix it if it was.
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One thing you can do to see if your personal information was accessed by hackers is to check the haveibeenpwned.com website, which will tell you whether your data was stolen, Motherboard reports. However, this might not always be effective, so you can start your investigation in a different place: Your Netflix account.
If you notice strange movies in your Recently Watched section, it might be an indication that someone is accessing your account. However, there’s a quick fix for that, as Business Insider explains.
Just go to your account page, and select the Sign out of all devices option (image above). That’s it. The click of a single button will kill all Netflix sessions on any device out there. After that, make sure you change your password.
It might be a good idea to not share your new passwords with family and friends immediately. After all, you’ll want to see if hackers crack your account a second time, and that means limiting the number of people you give access to. That way, if strange titles still appear in your history again, it means someone is still able to get into your Netflix account.
One other thing you should watch out for is the creation of other viewer profiles, which obviously might mean a third party has access to your account.
Finally, since hackers sell lifetime access to your account, that could mean other personal data has been stolen which could help them regain access to your account. You should make sure you change passwords to other online services as well, and choose unique passwords for each one. You should also check your bank activity and determine whether there are any fraudulent charges.
