Content piracy has evolved. While streaming platforms are making monumental efforts to end account sharing, some have taken the illegality to a much higher level. All this thanks to a little-known technique: CDN leeching.
If the term doesn’t mean anything to you, the “Content Delivery Networks” have become formidable infiltration techniques for pirates. Rather than attacking head-on, hackers dig an invisible tunnel directly into the heart of the infrastructure of industry giants like Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+. These networks, usually completely legal, constitute the backbone of modern streaming. CDNs distribute videos on thousands of servers spread across the world, and positioned as close as possible to users to guarantee smooth and fast playback. It is precisely this infrastructure that pirates exploit, by misappropriating stolen access keys, or by exploiting unpatched technical vulnerabilities.
The result is insidious, but particularly clever: pirate services redistribute official streams with quality identical to the original, low latency and a user experience almost identical to the original. All this by using the servers of legal platforms, and therefore, by paying nothing, specify our colleagues at Univers Freebox.
The perfect crime?
Cybersecurity specialists have been sounding the alarm for years, but the practice is almost impossible to detect. In the meantime, the irony is bitter: Netflix and its competitors therefore pay to distribute content to pirates, while losing subscribers who turn to these free illegal alternatives. Unlike classic pirate sites which operate from identifiable URLs, the Leeching CDN traffic emanates directly from the platform servers. Conventional detection systems, calibrated to detect illegal web addresses, logically see nothing but fire.
Piracy-as-a-service, the new golden age of illegal streaming?
While we thought the era of piracy was over with the arrival of streaming platforms, their proliferation has created an ironic flashback. If torrenting was indeed in decline for a time, the end of Netflix hegemony created fertile ground for a new industry: Piracy-as-a-Service. No need to download anything, just subscribe to a subscription offer, illegal, but well below the market.
The challenge for Netflix, Disney+ and Prime Vide is colossal. CDN leeching represents more than just a loss of revenue: it is a structural threat. Not sure that the platforms will manage to get rid of this thorny problem anytime soon.
🟣 To not miss any news on the WorldOfSoftware, subscribe on Google News and on our WhatsApp. And if you love us, .
