Musician Adam Ant's death a social media scam

 

The tweets of his death were greatly exaggerated.

 

Facebook and Twitter users were warned Friday (Manila time) against a new scam claiming 1980s British pop star Adam Ant has died.

 

Computer security firm Sophos noted a rise in Facebook and Twitter messages claiming the musician died in a jet ski accident on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

 

"Although some users are just tweeting their respects at the 'news' of Adam Ant's death, others are posting a link to what appears to be an online news report about the musician's death," Sophos' senior technology consultant Graham Cluley said in a blog post.

 

Cluley said the link led to a "Global Associated News" web page claiming Adam Ant died in a jet ski accident.

 

But he noted the supposed news page's URL contained "adam.ant" before the domain name.

 

He said that when he replaced "adam.ant" with "graham.cluley," the headline on the news page was changed to reflect his name

 

"Well fancy that - I'm a dead musician!" he said.

 

A check of small print at the bottom of the webpage confirmed the report was "fake," and that the website was an entertainment site with a "dynamically generated" story using a generic template.

 

Cluley said it was likely the website was making money from ads posted on the news report webpage.

 

"Of course, the sheer number of people tweeting out the link won't have done any harm at all for the website - which presumably is earning revenue from the adverts plastered on its fictional news report," he said.

 

"Just imagine the harm that could occur if there was malware lying in wait at the end of that salacious news story link?" he added. — TJD, GMA News