They warn of a new ‘smishing’ campaign that pretends to be a Netflix payment gateway to steal data

Oct. 29 (Portaltic/EP) –

The Internet Security Office (OSI) has warned of a new campaign of ‘smishing’ in which cybercriminals make fake payment gateways available to victims to steal their information.

‘Smishing’ is a technique that comes from ‘phishing’ and consists of sending text messages or SMS to victims pretending to be a legitimate entity (such as a social network, a bank or a public institution), to steal information or make financial charges.

The OSI has reported that He has detected a new campaign of sending fraudulent SMS in which attackers impersonate Netflix claiming that they must enter their credentials for alleged problems in the payment of the subscription.

This organization has put several examples of fraudulent messages, in which a time limit is established to proceed with the transaction, either with a specific upcoming date or in the following 24 hours.

To do this, fraudsters provide victims with a link to access the platform, which turns out to direct them to a fake web page but with a design very similar to that of the streaming content platform.

Once inside this fake website, victims enter their username and the account password to log in and upon signing in, a message is displayed indicating that the account has been temporarily suspended.

“Your last debit failed, please update your payment methods to benefit from our services,” they notify from the alleged Netflix website. Then, the ‘Next’ button appears which, once pressed, displays a form to fill in with the billing information.

The following steps include another form to enter the bank card number, expiration date and security code, a process that concludes with a presumed SMS authentication system.

Once you have entered the phone number to which you want the message to be sent, the link redirects to the actual website of the streaming movie and series platform.

ASPECTS TO CONSIDER

From the OSI they have recalled that it is vitally important to take into account certain details of the received SMS to determine that it is a scam. First of all, you have remembered that getting a link that starts with ‘https’ does not guarantee that the connection is secure.

In addition, he has recalled that these cybercriminals are carrying out attacks using URLs that contain words such as ‘netfspain’ either ‘neftxes’. You should also be suspicious of messages that use phrases similar to ‘confirm data’, ‘payment refused’ or ‘update your information’ as claims.

On the other hand, he has warned that these SMS usually be preceded by the callsign ‘NETFLIX:’ to give more credibility and that generate in users the urgency to carry out an action in a period of 24 hours.

Finally, users who believe they have been victims of this fraud have been recommended to contact the supplier of the service, as well as with the bank to block the bank card associated with the Netflix account and change the password to access your profile.