Is Streaming Worth the Malware?

Netflix is arguably one of the best ways to procrastinate. You can spend hours finishing up an entire season of television series; of course, this isn't really recommended but when you only have fifteen seconds to decide to watch the next episode…you just can't say no, right? Thus, you can imagine the dismay when I found out that using this great website could compromise my computer.
In order to use Netflix on your PC, you have to install Microsoft Silverlight 5. However, Malwarebytes Corporation revealed in a recent blog post that a vulnerability in Microsoft Silverlight 5 is being used on malicious websites to infect PCs with malware. Silverlight, similar to Adobe Flash, is an application framework created by Microsoft that is designed for writing and running rich Internet applications.
The exploit, which Microsoft patched earlier this year, lets attackers execute arbitrary codes on affected systems without user interaction. @EKWatcher first spotted the flaw in Angler Exploit kits and Kafeine later summarized how the attack works.

Once the Angler exploit kit is on the exploit page, it determines what version of Silverlight is installed. If it determines that the conditions are right, it crafts a special library to exploit the Silverlight vulnerability. Attackers' true objective is to infect victims' devices with malware. Leveraging vulnerabilities simply helps them achieve this.
Silverlight isn't widely used, but a handful of websites require the Silverlight web plugin to view content, including Netflix. Timo Hirvonen noted that Netflix's 40 million subscribers are all at risk for the Silverlight exploit. While Netflix does flaunt this number of streaming subscribers, with options like game consoles, smart TVs, and Roku, quite a few of these users probably never use their computers to stream from the website.

Users with older versions of Silverlight should update versions of the web plugin to help ensure their PCs are not at risk. Updating Silverlight isn't the only solution to prevent malware problems. Installing antivirus software is a good way to protect your devices from infections. There's plenty of great software out there, including one of our favorites, Norton Antivirus (2014). Always make sure your programs and software are up to date to avoid any chance of getting targeted by cyberattacks.