E-mail Scams Claiming Celebrity Deaths Are Circulating

WHAT/WHY:

New waves of e-mails with shocking subject lines that are nearly impossible to resist opening are making the rounds.

Examples of these subject lines include:

• Beyonce Knowles Fatal Car Crash
• Brad Pitt Fatal Car Crash
• Johnny Depp died
• Madonna Fatal Car Crash
• Oprah Winfrey Fatal Car Crash
• Tiger Woods died

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 of 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 customized by the criminal to gather any sort of information on the infected computer.

Norton data shows that this kind of ".zip attachment spam" has more than doubled in recent weeks!

More information is available on the Security Response Blog.

EXPERTS:

Norton experts are on hand to share tips with users on how they can protect themselves from these kinds of scams including:

• Install spam filtering/blocking software. Antispam software separates spam from legitimate messages.
• Do not respond to suspicious e-mails. If you suspect an e-mail is spam, delete it. Do not click on e-mail links asking to be removed from the sender's list. Sometimes unsubscribe links don't work, and any sort of response only confirms your e-mail address and may result in more unwanted messages.
• Set up a disposable e-mail address. Have a secondary address for public use, such as online registration and e-commerce sites. Set up the secondary address to forward e-mails to your primary account.

IMAGES:

Sample images of these messages available upon request

WHEN:

Interviews with Norton experts available upon request

CONTACT:

Gerritt Hoekman

Edelman for Norton

323-202-1895

Gerritt.Hoekman@Edelman.com