The Death of Michael Jackson Unleashes Spam Campaign
With the untimely death of pop star legend Michael Jackson comes an increase in spam emails seeking to take advantage of the tragic news. IT security and control firm Sophos, among many others in their field, are warning users to be wary of spam messages using the death of this music icon in order to harvest unsuspecting computer users’ email addresses for future campaigns.
Just hours after the King of Pop’s death, web users received emails that claimed to have vital information regarding Jackson’s passing, exploiting the breaking news in the subject line and body of the email. If a recipient responds to the message, hackers may then be able to access personal and financial information on the compromised machine, leading to identity theft. Despite these emails not containing any attachments, links or telephone numbers, Sophos has classified them as spam.
"The untimely death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, has sent shockwaves through the entire world - but unfortunately, this type of huge news story is also the perfect vehicle for spammers to snare vulnerable computer users," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "These spammers are relying on curious users to reply to their bogus claims - but if you receive one of these messages you just need to delete it."
Another trend being used by hackers are shortened, free URLs that help to disguise the real destination and divert any concerns regarding legitimacy of the link. Message Labs Intelligence stated in its latest monthly report that while many of the more popular services are quick to respond in stamping out this abuse by withdrawing the violated links, more recent sites are less responsive.
In recent months, spam levels in countries where English is not the native language, have been increasing significantly. In Germany and the Netherlands, spam levels have increased by 13% since May. One method contributing to this rise in spam volume is the use of automated translation services to enable multiple language spam runs.
Unfortunately it would seem that Michael Jackson is not the only celebrity who's death has sparked off the use of fraudulent emails. Farrah Fawcett, who passed away several hours before Jackson, lost her battle against cancer at the age of 62, and while her death has generally gone by unnoticed due to the media hype surrounding Michael's own tragic end, hackers have wasted little time in taking advantage of the news.
Graham Cluley went on to state, "We've also discovered cybercriminals taking advantage of the sad death of 70s TV icon Farrah Fawcett to spread fake anti-virus software, so users should certainly remain vigilant. The fact is that cybercriminals have no respect for taste and decency. The only thing they are interested in is making some money for themselves, and turning other computer users' lives into a misery."
The simple fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, we are all driven by a basic human desire to watch the fall and tragedy of others, especially if they happen to be famous. While there is little we can do concerning this schadenfreude, what we must all be aware of is the dangers such desires can bring about. Hackers know this all too well, and continuously seek to bait us with news of celebrity deaths, in order to make some quick cash.