Cyber Miscreants Found Exploiting the News of Corey Haim’s Funeral

According to the security experts of Trend Micro, cyber goons are increasingly exploiting the news of the death of Corey Haim, Canadian teen idol, in a bid to launch FAKEAV (fake anti-virus) scams.

Security experts describes that employing blackhat SEO (SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION) techniques, malicious links at the top of search results are provided if a user simply search for the news on the funeral of Corey Haim on Google. These malicious links redirect the susceptible user to Web sites that ultimately result in downloading a FAKEAVE.

It is worth noting that at present, FAKEAV or fake antivirus, has become one of the most common threats in the Internet threat landscape, and as cyber crooks take a more advanced and sophisticated approach, fake anti-virus are constantly evolving.

Trend Micro alerts all the gullible users that while following these malicious links, a false window opens and shows that the user's system is flooded with malware, and therefore suggests him/her to download the anti-virus solution it offers.

The downloaded file is detected as TROJ_FAKEAV.DBB. by the security firm. A scan page containing phony scan results is loaded by the program which offers the user to eliminate hazardous files from his system.

As the product asks for activation, Trend Micro feels that there's a slight catch. The security firm recommends users to be watchful of such ploys as they might unwillingly make the target reveal his personal sensitive data. Attackers, in this case, ask the victim for his credit card details.

Considering the viciousness of the spam, users are strongly advised to be extra cautious while surfing the Internet for such hot topics as malware felons have gain expertise to get their names included in the top search results. Also, to avoid system infection, users must rely only on the trusted news websites to search for reports on celebrity's death.

The Canadian teen idol is not the only celebrity whose death has been misused by cyber crooks. These miscreants were also spotted misusing Brittany Murphy's death in December 2009.And earlier, in June 2009, when the whole world was morning for loosing the greatest pop star Micheal Jackson, cyber assailants were busy launching various FAKEAV scams.

Related article: Cyber Child abuser Sentenced To Imprisonment

» SPAMfighter News - 3/24/2010