Official EU Website Exploited to Advertise Shady IPTV Services

Last month, the European Union published its fourth edition of the 'Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List', a detailed report highlighting piracy-linked sites and services located outside the EU. The report identified several unlicensed IPTV services, including VolkaIPTV, GenIPTV, and King365TV, warning that these are just the tip of the iceberg. According to the European Commission, there are likely to be thousands of pirate IPTV apps and services in the world, making it a complex and difficult problem to tackle.

The EU has been aware of the issue for some time and has taken steps to research and enforce actions against piracy. However, despite these efforts, a significant vulnerability emerged closer to home. The European Commission's own technical infrastructure was exploited to promote shady IPTV services. This is a serious concern that highlights the need for vigilance and proactive measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Our investigation took us to a surprising place - the Eurostat portal, which provides high-quality statistics and data about Europe to the EU and its member states. On this website, we stumbled upon a PDF document that appeared to be an official overview of the 'best' IPTV services for 2025. The document included a prominent link to "get started now", directing visitors to portugueseiptv[.]pt.

The service promises access to a wide range of live sports, over 18,000 channels, and 98,000 VOD titles for less than $60 per year. This includes popular content like Netflix, Disney, the Premier League, NFL, and more. While the promise sounds too good to be true, it's clear that this is a scam.

A quick search revealed that several similar PDFs had been posted on Eurostat's website just two weeks ago, all trying to promote IPTV services. This type of scam is not new, but the use of vulnerabilities in reputable websites' upload functionalities to exploit piracy-related scams is a concern the EU has encountered before.

The goal of these PDFs is to rank high for popular search terms and phrases, leading people to access the documents. Those who don't immediately recognize them as scams might even be inclined to click on the included links. In this case, the PDF appeared as the first result for several key search terms and phrases.

Furthermore, Google's AI overview interpreted the PDF document as an official EU stance, blending the information into a response when we asked about the EU's IPTV recommendations. This adds to the confusion and potential risk of click-through scams.

Before writing up our findings, we alerted Eurostat to the problem, allowing them time to address the issue. Fortunately, they informed us that the problem was identified and quickly fixed. The PDFs no longer appear on their website. However, if history is any guide, similar hacks will undoubtedly appear on other websites in the future.

This incident highlights the need for vigilance and proactive measures to prevent similar incidents. It also underscores the importance of responsible and transparent communication from government agencies like Eurostat. As we move forward, it's essential to stay vigilant and aware of potential security risks and scams that could be lurking on reputable websites.