As night follows day, malicious hackers are following high-profile news around celebrity deaths to launch attacks.
According to a warning from the U.S. Computer Emergency Response team, there are several spam campaigns, phishing attacks, and malicious code targeting the recent deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.
From the US-CERT advisory [cert.org]:
- These email messages may attempt to gain user information through phishing attacks or by recording email addresses if the user replies to the message. Additionally, email messages may contain malicious code or may contain a link to a seemingly legitimate website containing malicious code.
Computer users are encouraged to take the following measures to protect themselves from these types of attacks:
- Do not follow unsolicited web links received in email messages.
- Install and maintain up-to-date antivirus software.
