Hoax Celeb Deaths Email Steals Info
- Celeb deaths is new email scam
- Don’t open attachment
- If opened will put viruses on your computer
A new waves of hoax e-mails is banking on peoples’ natural curiousity about celebrity to open attachments, and thus making their computer susceptible to malware.
The subject header, such as Beyonce Knowles Fatal Car Crash, has made it almost impossible for some people to ignore. Other A-list celebs that are mentioned in the various emails in include Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Bon Jovi, Cameron Diaz, David Beckham, Tom Cruise, Gwen Stefani, Jay-Z, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Timberlake and Nicole Kidman.
Some of the morbid e-mail messages also add that the celebrity has died along with 34 other people when their plane carrying the group on a trip crashed into a mountainside while approaching the airport.
For further details about these celebrity deaths, recipients are asked to open an attachment. Cybercriminals are distributing this false news in order to spread viruses using HTML or zipped attachments that can carry malicious software (“Malware”) hoping to gain access to people’s computers and steal their personal information.
One the threats attached to these particular e-mails (Trojan.Zbot) has primarily been designed to steal confidential information from the computers it infects. It specifically targets system information, online credentials, and banking details, but can be customised by the criminal to gather any sort of information on the infected computer.
Do you know of any other scams that are infecting your email? Leave a comment and let us know!
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