Kanye West death prank used to sling scareware
Rumours of the death of rapper Kanye West in a car crash became fodder for fake anti-malware scams on Tuesday. Users searching for more info on the fictitious fatality are liable to get redirected to sites distributing scareware, security researchers warn. The rumour itself reportedly originated on notorious image board 4chan, …
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Joke!
" It seems almost inevitable that the imminent launch of Windows 7 will also be used to throw out scareware."
There are just so many jokes to be made from this that don't think I'll bother. Everybody can just make up their own.
Yo Kayne...I'm really happy for you
http://www.ninja-monkey.co.uk/byte/kaynealive.jpg
Nuff said.
Yo, El Reg, I'mma let you finish, but...
...that was one of the funniest taglines of all time. Of all time!
Point of view...
...One man's scare is another man's good news?
IMMA LET YOU FINISH
BUT EMINEM'S FAKE TWITTER DEATH WAS THE GREATEST EVER!
'James Dean-style'?
The difference is, people missed James Dean.
Thanks for the info
I heard 4chan was behind it. Didn't know about the hacker angle.
http://www.kanyewestisnotdead.com
Thanks.
-kpaul
Dangerous
It's a very dangerous rumour to spread. The entire world could collapse under the weight of its collective indifference.
I dread to think what damage Mr West is going to inflict
on his CAPS LOCK CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL after this incident
News?
Does this not happen every day on that Internet, that an alarmist story is used to distribute malware - trojans, keyloggers? Wait, you said scareware. Why is it scareware this time? Scared that Kanye West is dead? And I suppose the other slightly-not-every-day element in the story is that a significant number of people apparently took it seriously enough to make it noteable. Still, this is the internet. It all goes away when you switch off your PC, and quite a lot of it isn't there the next day.
lolwat?
Scareware is actually stuff that scares the user into splashing money actually..
like fake anti virus telling you that you have 489 infections and you need to buy there program,
why read el reg is you cant even understand some simple shit like what scareware is, thats the scary part!
Hopefully when we all switch out boxes on tommoro, you mr Robert Carnegie wont be here.
A fake scare about a fake
He as fake as the fake death report.
Windows7..
"It seems almost inevitable that the imminent launch of Windows 7 will also be used to throw out scareware."
I even heard some of that scareware was sent in advance because of a planned Royal Mail strike... well, at least _this_ crash won't involve luxury cars
Meme
El Reg uses the most idiotic meme ever? I'm done with you guys.
Scareware?
@Robert Carnegie
Yes, everyday there are new attacks on the Internet. Everyday, thousands of bits of malware are generated, some released into the wild, others held back for another time. However, it IS worth reporting on SEO poisoning and these celebrity death hoaxes to warn the general public to make these attacks less successful, and to show them that you always have to be vigilant.
We do the same thing here at Sophos. We try to talk about relevant security threats and educate users to the tricks that malware authors use. In fact, we too posted about this today:
http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/10/21/kanye-west-died-car-crash-hackers-exploit-rumour/
Beth Jones, SophosLabs
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