Protecting your Roku account

Recently, Roku announced that 576,000 user accounts were compromised. Roku has taken a public relations hit, but it really wasn't their fault.

What happened was that users had the same password on their Roku account that they used on other accounts. One (or more) of those other (non-Roku) accounts was compromised, and then hackers used the same credentials on Roku accounts, and were successful.

Again, it wasn't Roku's fault, but sloppy security by 576,000 users, but Roku has caught some flak for it. And now Roku has offered suggestions for helping secure accounts, and it's good advice:

We are committed to maintaining the privacy and security of your Roku account. We also believe in empowering our users with information and tools to help safeguard their accounts:

Create a strong, unique password for your Roku account. This makes it harder for someone to gain unauthorized access to your account. Use a mix of at least eight characters, including numbers, symbols, and lowercase and upper-case letters. Find more tips here: How to create a strong and secure password for your Roku account.

Remain vigilant. Please be alert to any suspicious communications appearing to come from Roku, such as requests to update your payment details, share your username or password, or click on suspicious links. When in doubt over the authenticity of a communication, contact Roku Customer Support.

Stay informed. In addition to blog posts and Support pages on Roku, be sure to check your email for communications from Roku and periodically log in to your Roku account to review your account charges.

Additional recommendations can be found here: How to keep your Roku account secure.

These suggestions are good for not just Roku accounts, but for any online account. My Streaming Life uses several online accounts, and each has unique, secure passwords. Yours should too.