A 23-year-old Australian man was sentenced to 2 years and 2 months in prison after it was found he had been selling stolen credentials to streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify, reported ZDNet on Monday, April 26.
The Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) investigation began in 2018 after the Federal Bureau of Investigation handed information about an account generator website called WickedGen.com. The site was said to have operated for about two years selling the stolen streaming accounts.
The AFP identified the man to be the creator, administrator, and the primary financial beneficiary of the operation, as well as 3 other “account generator” sites identified as HyperGen, Autoflix, and AccountBot.
Stolen accounts came from within Australia and abroad. The AFP said the illegal services had about 152,863 users and at least 85,925 subscriptions accessing the streaming platforms through the stolen credentials, and netting the man at least AU$680,000 through PayPal.
Beyond the parasitic use of the accounts, AFP cybercrime operations commander Chris Goldsmid warned the stolen information could further expose the legitimate account owners to other forms of data fraud. – Rappler.com
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