The death of Michael Jackson created so much traffic to Google that came close to crashing their system and for a while they thought they were under attack. But that blast of sometimes morbid curiosity was also another perfect opportunity for the scammers.  Security Firms Warn of Michael Jackson Spam

Computer security firms are warning users to be vigilant about spam messages capitalizing [on] the sudden death of U.S. pop star Michael Jackson.

[...] Security firm Sophos on Friday reported that about eight hours after Jackson's death, its experts witnessed the first wave of spam messages taking advantage of the breaking news in the subject line and body of the email.

In these messages, the spammers claimed that they have vital information about the death of Michael Jackson to share and asked for a reply.

Experts said the spammers can easily harvest recipients' contact information via a free live email address if users reply to the spam message.

[...] In addition, security experts at Sophos discovered that cybercriminals were taking advantage of the passing of U.S. actress Farrah Fawcett, a 1970s TV icon who also died on Thursday, to spread fake anti-virus software.

Bad news offers opportunity to spread malicious software, noted Guilherme Venere, an expert at security firm McAfee.

"Every time a disaster happens or news about some celebrity reaches the media, malware writers try to take advantage of it. The most common attack vector is email," he wrote in a posting on the company's blog.

Venere said users should be wary of spam emails offering links to "news" or "pictures" of deceased celebrities, which most of the time will lead to Web sites touting pharmacy products and even result in the installment of malware on the computers.

My system scan yesterday turned up about 20 trojans and malware applications, all of them attached to emails and I'd bet your system shows something similar. Death may be, as some cynics noted about Elvis, "a good career move" but there's a reason we practise good hygiene when handling the dead and that applies to our computers.

Have a safe day on the net.

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