News of the Cyber World

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Netflix Customers Could Face Criminal Charges For Sharing Their Password

The popular streaming service is planning to put an end to password sharing beginning in early 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Netflix has been exploring ways to crack down on it for some time, and this is the first official notice that the changes will finally happen.

The company claimed that out of the 222 million households around the world with valid subscriptions, there were at least “100 million additional households” using their services via password sharing.

Households using Netflix through password sharing reportedly include more than 30 million households across the United States and Canada, Newsweek reported.

Netflix offers shared accounts with separate profiles and multiple streams in its plans, but only people living under the same roof apply.
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However, revenue has been falling since the start of this year, as it faces its first drop in subscribers in a decade.

The company has introduced fees for people sharing accounts not living in the same household in order to fight a decline in subscribers.
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Netflix’s terms of service had never allowed for multi-household sharing, which has read that it is the responsibility of “the member who created the Netflix account and whose payment method is charged” for any activity that occurs through the account.

 Well people, you have been warned about this changes in Netflix's policies for next year.

'Russian hackers' help two New York men game JFK taxi system

A pair of men living in New York, working with unnamed Russian nationals, hacked and manipulated the electronic taxis dispatch system at John F. Kennedy International Airport as part of a money-making scheme over a period of at least two years, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

Starting in at least September 2019, Daniel Abayev and Peter Leyman ran a pay-to-play system for cabbies who could jump the line instead of idling in a holding lot until hailed by a dispatcher, prosecutors with the Southern District of New York said in a statement. Abayev and Leyman allegedly charged taxi drivers $10 for each time they skipped ahead and gave other drivers waivers from the $10 fee if they recruited more paying drivers.

The duo each face two counts of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions, which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

As part of the scheme, the men worked with unidentified “hackers” in Russia to develop malware, prosecutors alleged in the indictment, which was unsealed Tuesday. The men bribed someone to insert a flash drive into computers connected to the system used to dispatch the taxis, the prosecutors said. They also gained unauthorized access to the dispatch system via a Wi-Fi connection, and stole computer tablets connected to the system, according to the indictment.

Russian hackers attempted to breach petroleum refining company in NATO country

The attempted intrusion, which appears to have been unsuccessful, occurred on Aug. 30 and was carried out through spear phishing emails using English-named files containing words like “military assistance,” according to the report, which provides an update on the activities since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine of a hacking group Palo Alto tracks as “Trident Ursa.”

The report on Trident Ursa’s latest movements comes on the heels of a warning from National Security Agency Cyber Director Rob Joyce that Russian state-backed hackers may target the energy sector in NATO countries in coming months.

These attacks, Joyce said, may have “spillover” impacts for Ukraine’s neighbors — like Poland, where Microsoft recently warned that Russian-backed hackers have stepped up attacks on the country’s logistics industry, a key enabler of the Ukrainian war effort.
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The group has been heavily active since the start of the Ukraine war and has previously tried to phish Ukrainian entities.

The report from Unit 42 assesses that the likely goal of infiltrating a petroleum refining company was to increase “intelligence collection and network access against Ukrainian and NATO allies.”
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The group utilizes geo-blocking to limit their attacks, only letting users in targeted countries download malicious files, which reduces the visibility of their attacks and makes their campaigns more difficult to identify.

The Russian hacking group also has some unique tendencies in picking domain names referencing pop culture. Some of the domains includes U.S. basketball teams, well-known rock bands such as Metallica and Papa Roach and names of characters from the popular TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” Unit 42’s researchers told CyberScoop.

The group also has a habit of trolling its opponents and attacking them online.