Scammers pounce on news of Elizabeth Taylor’s death

The news of the death of Elizabeth Taylor is already being used in social engineering scams on Twitter.

Here is an example of one I saw this morning:

Bit.ly statistics show the same short URL has been recycled since November 2010 for different on-click fraud campaigns (pay per traffic) related to the same affiliate program.

People from 48 different countries clicked on it and here are some stats:

Some conclusions:

• Cyber criminals don’t care about morals and ethics. Money is money for them and topics like celebrity deaths, natural disasters and other critical situations have been used without any regret.
• If you’re not infected by malware, that doesn’t mean you cannot be a victim. Cyber criminals can still make money from your clicks on these social engineering campaigns.
• The losses from cybercrime are growing year to year. These statistics from the FBI is further confirmation http://www.ic3.gov/media/2011/110224.aspx