Cybercriminals exploit Whitney Houston's death

Published February 14, 2012 3:29pm

Even in death, the late singer Whitney Houston has fallen victim to cybercrooks who are using her demise to gain quick money at computer users' expense.

Computer security firm Trend Micro said it has uncovered two web threats shortly after news of Houston's death at age 48 broke out Sunday (Manila time).

"Given the massive attention that Houston’s death generated, cybercriminals are naturally out there taking advantage of this unfortunate incident," it said in a blog post.

The first web threat was a clickjacking attack found on Facebook, while the second was a link circulating on Twitter, Trend Micro said.

In the Facebook attack, a fake video is circulating with the subject “I Cried watching this video. RIP Whitney Houston.“

When users click on the link to a supposed Whitney Houston video, they are led to a Facebook page that contains a link to the video.

"However, clicking the said link only leads to several other redirections until users are lead to the usual survey scam site," it said.

It added 101 more survey scam domains registered on the same IP where the domains are hosted.

On the other hand, Trend Micro noted tweets with malicious links that also took advantage of the tag "RIP Whitney Houston," which was trending worldwide on Twitter.

"The said tweets contain a link to a particular blog dedicated to Whitney Houston. Users viewing this page are then redirected to another web site, even without them having to click on anything," it said.

It said the succeeding page is a site that supposedly features several Whitney Houston wallpapers, which users can download.

Once users decide to download a wallpaper, a popup window appears that asks users to donwload some “Whitney Houston ringtones.”

"Whatever users choose – whether to leave the page or stay on the page – they will be redirected to the a survey site that asks for mobile numbers," it said.

Trend Micro advised users to always be cautious before clicking any news items in their Facebook or Twitter feeds that purportedly contains news about their favorite celebrities.

It also advised them to bookmark reliable news sites to avoid these schemes. — TJD, GMA News

Tags: trendmicro, cybercrime, whitneyhouston