Rumours of Johnny Depp’s death just a scam

By admin | January 25, 2010 | 1 Comment 

admin

johnny_depp1_300_400Once again cybercriminals are at it again spreading rumours and lies to try and trap the unwary. Several news outlets are reporting a set of spam emails circulating about an entirely untrue car crash story, misreporting that Johnny Depp had died over the weekend.

Symantec has investigate the spam and it appears that this is nothing more than yet another Fake AV Scam which attempts to trick users into paying them to remove malware which is not present on their systems.  We detect this as VirusDoctor. Symantec customers, both consumer and enterprise, are already protected. As we reported at the end of last year, unfortunately these sorts of fake AV downloads are not uncommon – indeed the Symantec Rogue AV Report suggested we had seen over 43million people download fake security software in a 12 month period.

As ever, it is important that people keep on their guard when searching for information on the Web. Make sure your legitimate antivirus software is updated and if you are ever feel yourself being strong-armed into buying antivirus software from any dubious online sources – Don’t do it! Instead go to a trusted source such as your local physical shop.

Dominic Cook

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One Response to “Rumours of Johnny Depp’s death just a scam”

  1. BBC reveals another Haiti scam : View From The Bunker on February 17th, 2010

    [...] celebrity, like Michael Jackson last year; or rumours of the death or injury of a star like Johnny Depp earlier this year; or indeed the outpouring of support when the poorest in the world suffer [...]

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