Michael Jackson, Fawcett & McMahon Spur Internet Fraud...

July 2009

While most of the country mourns the deaths of two celebrities, fraudsters seek opportunity by tricking heartbroken followers. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) issued an alert on June 26 warning of increased spam campaigns, phishing attacks and malicious code attacks surrounding the stars’ deaths. Some scams may result in identity theft. Fraudsters have taken advantage of other situations to swindle personal information and money following national and worldwide disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami. In addition to phishing and malicious code attacks, there were many charity scams. Charity and fan paraphernalia scams are expected to be associated with the celebrity’s names. Some of these scams will claim to collect donations from unsuspecting consumers for charitable causes supported by the late stars. Some scams may collect credit card and bank account information as payment for charitable donations or for the purchase of celebrity memorabilia. There will be no donations or souvenirs, the financial account information handed over will be used by the fraudsters to commit existing account fraud, a form of identity theft.