With the current financial crisis continuing to affect families across the UK it's no surprise that homes are looking for cheap ways to watch premium TV. A standard Sky contract costs around £30 but start adding Sports and Cinema and things can soon rise to over £70 per month. Subscribe to Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Video and bills can push through the £100 barrier.
It's a vast amount of money and it's easy to see why switching to illegal streams - via devices such as Fire TV Sticks - can be hugely tempting. These Amazon-powered dongles can be adapted to show premium sports and movies with some illegal operators even offering full Sky access at a fraction of the retail price - and sometimes even for free.
Sadly, watching telly without paying a premium is often too good to be true. Cybercrooks appear to be using the lure of the cut-priced content to spread vicious data-stealing malware. Once a TV device is infected it can even attack the whole broadband network leaving other devices connected to the same Wi-Fi at risk of attack.
Speaking to Mail Online, cybercrime specialist Dr John Dempsey from the University of Central Lancashire, said: "Your personal data may be sold – this includes contact details such as email addresses, IP address, home address, credit card numbers."
"A firestick contains an 'operating system' which can be infected by malicious software, which could then infect any device it is connected to – this may give a criminal access to other devices that are connected to your home network.
"The person selling the firestick may even have included vulnerabilities or backdoors that allow them to access your network and collect network data."
Another reason to be careful is that many providers are being closed down which means you could end paying for a service that no longer works.
During a three-week period last month ACT and Sky delivered 47 legal notices. This has led to the majority of the illegal services being taken down, and advertising removed.
Kieron Sharp, CEO at FACT said: “Illegal IPTV service providers are breaking the law and putting consumers at real risk of malware, data loss and identity theft”.
And Matt Hibbert, Director of Anti-Piracy UK and ROI, at Sky added, “We understand the power of working with our partners to tackle the issue of illegal streaming, and we’re grateful to FACT and law enforcement for their support.
“At Sky we are passionate about protecting our content while ensuring consumers can enjoy the content they love, free from risks that illegal streams can pose”.