Disney’s New Streaming Service Hacked

Sue Byamba
By Sue Byamba
November 19, 2019Business News
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Disney’s New Streaming Service Hacked
A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company at the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 14, 2017. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Disney’s answer to Netflix, its new streaming service Disney+, has been hacked, according to reports.

Tech news website ZDNet reported that thousands of Disney+ customer accounts are up for sale on hacking forums, yet BBC News says that Disney is yet to comment on the issue.

The Disney+ video streaming service launched on Nov. 12. The platform allows customers to watch movies, short films, and TV shows for $7 a month.

Although the service is available only in the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, 10 million customers signed up on its first day of launch, according to ZDNet.

But fans soon took to Twitter to write about their disappointment with the service, as many either had trouble streaming videos or accessing their accounts.

When customers saw their email addresses and passwords linked to their accounts change, calls to customer service reportedly peaked.

The company said on Twitter that it had an overwhelming response and apologized.

On the day of launch, USA Today found that the waiting time for a customer service representative on the phone was 60 minutes, and via live chat was 30 minutes.

According to ZDNet, many users reported that hackers were locking them out from their accounts by accessing their accounts, logging them out of devices, and changing the account’s email address and password. 

Hours after the service launched, ZDNet found hackers were selling Disney+ accounts for as little as $3 to $11 on hacking forums. The BBC also found several hacked customer accounts for sale on the dark web.

One subscriber wrote on Twitter: “Disney+ launch has been absolutely horrible. Their customer service is no help at all and apparently, hundreds of accounts were hacked and sold online. My account got hacked & email/password changed, thankfully I canceled my subscription before the hack.”

When ZDNet asked the company about its security system to protect users from account hijacking, the outlet did not receive a response.

Services like Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix are prime targets for hackers owing to the global demand for video streaming.

ZDNet advised Disney+ account users use unique passwords to prevent hackers from gaining access to their accounts just by using common passwords.

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