A perennial favourite amongst bad actors, streaming giant Netflix is once more being mimicked in the latest scam to hit inboxes. With a subject that reads, ‘Last reminder before the final closing of your account’, the email masquerades as a notice to customers to reactivate their account by updating their billing information.
Fortunately, the email is poorly crafted grammatically, with unfamiliar language such as ‘Regularize your situation’ as a sub-heading in the email, and ‘Regularize my situation’ on the button.
The email display name is ‘Customers relation’. And, in an attempt to avoid detection and being blocked by filters, there are three different display addresses employed including info(at)gestion(dot)apuestatotal(dot)dev, info(at)octomine(dot)com, no-reply(at)servicesfinme(dot)com, and the sending addresses appear to be Amazon SES addresses and are unique for every message.
An example of the email is shown below:
After clicking through on the button, victims are presented with a login page that closely resembles a legitimate Netflix login page. The page asks for an email address or phone number, and a password.
After logging in, the next page confirms a ‘Notification of Suspension’ after ‘payment difficulties with your billing information’.
Victims click ‘Next’ to proceed to a three-step process to ‘Confirm Your Billing Information’. Step 1 includes your first name, last name, date of birth, phone number, postal address, city and postcode.
Step 2 asks users to confirm their credit card details including their ‘Payment Method’ including credit card number, expiry and CVV.
A spinning wheel displays once the information is submitted to indicate that the data is being processed. The scammers are actually attempting to process a transaction with the information supplied.
Once processed, the page requests a verification code that has been sent to the accountholder’s mobile number. Sharing it with the scammers allows them to finalise processing their fraudulent purchase.
Once the process is complete, an ‘Account reactivated’ message is displayed and the user is redirected to the official Netflix website.
At the end of 2023, Netflix had 6.1 million subscribers in Australia, and worldwide subscriber numbers jumped by nine million in the first quarter of this year, to 269.6 million paid subscribers globally at the beginning of 2024. A streaming behemoth that many can’t stand to be without, make Netflix credentials easy prey for cybercrooks.
Here are some previous scams impersonating the streaming giant:
- November 2017
- January 2018
- November 2019
- December 2019
- January 2020
- February 2020
- March 2020
- April 2021
- August 2021
- November 2021
- October 2022
MailGuard advises all recipients of this email to delete it immediately without clicking on any links. Providing your personal details can result in your sensitive information being used for criminal activity and may have a severe negative impact on your business and its financial well-being.
MailGuard urges users not to click links or open attachments within emails that:
- Are not addressed to you by name.
- Appear to be from a legitimate company but use poor English or omits personal details that a legitimate sender would include.
- Are from businesses that you were not expecting to hear from, and/or
- Take you to a landing page or website that is not the legitimate URL of the company the email is purporting to be sent from.
Many businesses turn to MailGuard after an incident or a near miss, often as a result of an email similar to the one shown above. If unwanted emails are a problem for your business, don’t wait until it’s too late.
Reach out to our team for a confidential discussion by emailing expert@mailguard.com.au or calling 1300 30 44 30.
One email is all that it takes
All that it takes to devastate your business is a cleverly worded email message that can steal sensitive user credentials or disrupt your business operations. If scammers can trick one person in your company into clicking on a malicious link or attachment, they can gain access to your data or inflict damage on your business.
For a few dollars per staff member per month, you can protect your business with MailGuard's predictive and advanced email security. Talk to a solution consultant at MailGuard today about securing your company's inboxes.
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