{"id":396,"date":"2011-06-23T06:02:05","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T06:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/?p=396"},"modified":"2017-08-24T06:55:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-24T06:55:49","slug":"brad-pitt-falls-victim-to-celebrity-death-spam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/hackers\/brad-pitt-falls-victim-to-celebrity-death-spam\/","title":{"rendered":"Brad Pitt falls victim to celebrity death spam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A vast increase in potentially dangerous <strong>celebrity death spam<\/strong> has encouraged security firm Symantec to caution users not to open morbid post.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Beleaguered <strong>celebrities <\/strong>comprise Beyonc\u00e9 Knowles, Bon Jovi, Brad Pitt, David Beckham and Gwen Stefani, with these newest attacks using a topic line that always contains the words \u2018died\u2019 or \u2018Fatal Crash\u2019.\u201c<em>Strange stories of celebrities have abruptly erupted in the spam ring, which explain their deaths in plane crashes or car accidents. The purpose of distribute such false news is to spread viruses using HTML or zipped attachments,\u201d<\/em> the firm wrote in a blog post.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-397\" title=\"brad1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/brad1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"259\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an old trick of using celebrity names to tempt recipients into opening malicious URL or attachments.\u201dThe memo usually claims that the celebrity in question has died along with 34 other people in a plane that stopped into the side of a ton on approach to an airport.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-398\" title=\"brad2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/brad2.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"259\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Recipients who want more particulars are then urged to open an attachment. This attachment, called \u201cHot News.zip\u201d, contains an executable file that Symantec has recognized as Trojan.Zbot. \u201cBy using product names such as well-known news agencies gives [the <strong>spammer<\/strong>] the much-needed credibility in order to gain trust in the recipient\u2019s mind,\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUsers ought to follow normal practices of not breach any doubtful links or attachments conventional in unsolicited email or from an unexpected source.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A vast increase in potentially dangerous celebrity death spam has encouraged security firm Symantec to caution users not to open morbid post. &nbsp; Beleaguered celebrities comprise Beyonc\u00e9 Knowles, Bon Jovi, Brad Pitt, David Beckham and Gwen Stefani, with these newest attacks using a topic line that always contains the words \u2018died\u2019 or \u2018Fatal Crash\u2019.\u201cStrange stories &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/hackers\/brad-pitt-falls-victim-to-celebrity-death-spam\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Brad Pitt falls victim to celebrity death spam&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[92,93],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hackers","category-hijack","tag-brad-pitt-falls","tag-celebrities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nigerianspam.com\/Who-got-scammed-today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}