Security experts are warning users to brace for a flood of spam regarding the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.
The US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT) has already received reports of spam and malicious email attacks exploiting the deaths of actress Fawcett and pop legend Jackson.
Shortly after news of Jackson's death broke yesterday, users flooded onto the web for more information. The resulting crush of traffic brought down popular web sites such as Google and Twitter as users rushed to obtain and share information.
Spammers and malware writers are now also expected to flood the internet with their own contributions, according to experts.
"Every time a disaster happens or news about some celebrity reaches the media, malware writers try to take advantage of it," wrote McAfee researcher Guilherme Venere in a blog posting. "Watch out for spam offering links to 'news' or 'pictures' of deceased celebrities."
US-CERT is also advising users to avoid clicking on any links or attachments contained in unsolicited messages, and to install and maintain updated anti-virus software.
See also:
Malicious email attachment masquerades as message notification 19 Jun 2009
Site allows trading of malware, data and networks of infected PCs 17 Jun 2009
Vast majority of surfers fail to spot the tell-tale signs 11 Jun 2009
Criminals react as dark servers get shut down 12 Jun 2009
Malware controllers seem to have learned from McColo 06 Jun 2009All Hacking Tags: Mcafee, Us-cert, Michael-jackson, Farrah-fawcett, Spam, Malware, Ecommerce, Security
del.icio.us
Digg this
reddit!
