Spammers Leverage Steve Jobs' Death

After Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death was made known to the public on October 6, 2011, several spam samples made rounds, taking advantage of Jobs' death. These spammed messages may come in different forms and languages, but they all contain malicious links.

The first sample shown below contains a short message claiming that Steve Jobs is still alive and provides a link as proof. Clicking the link redirects the recipient to the URL {BLOCKED}e.ce.ms/index.php.

The other sample contains a short news item about Steve Jobs' death, together with a link that directs to a malicious website.

Both links were verified to be either a fraud page or laden with malware, which may lead users to the download of malicious files. Trend Micro strongly advises users to check news updates on Steve Jobs via legitimate news sites and via the Apple website.