More Than 15,000 Roku Streaming Accounts Have Been Breached

(CTN News) – Streaming user accounts belonging to 15,363 Roku users have been accessed by “unauthorized individuals” who in some cases attempted to use the hack to purchase streaming subscriptions on the platform.

According to the company’s filing with the Maine Attorney General’s Office, the company discovered the breach on Friday, March 8, and notified the office.

According to a report by Bleeping Computer, one of the perpetrators of the data theft was attempting to sell the credentials for the stolen accounts “for as little as $0.50 per account, enabling purchasers to make illegal purchases by using stored credit cards.”.

According to a letter Roku sent to affected users, posted on the Maine AG’s website, the company ensured the accounts were protected from further unauthorized access by requiring each registered account holder to reset the password, in order to prevent further unauthorized access to those accounts.

As part of the investigation, the company also said it investigated account activity to determine whether the unauthorized actors had incurred any charges, and it took measures to cancel or refund any charges incurred by the unauthorized actors.

There are more than 15,000 accounts that had been compromised, but that number is a small fraction of overall user base: the company estimates there were 80 million active accounts by the end of 2023.

As part of our commitment to protection of your privacy and security, we are writing to notify you about an event that may have affected your Roku account, as part of our commitment to those values and protecting your information,” Roku stated in a letter to its customers affected by the recent event.

Roku’s security team has noticed suspicious activity indicating that certain individual accounts may have been accessed by unauthorized actors, according to the customer notice.

According to the company’s investigation, it was likely that unauthorized actors had obtained certain usernames and passwords of Roku customers through data breaches of third-party services that are not related to Roku (that is, through breaches of third-party services that are not related to Roku).

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