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Crooks exploit Natasha Richardson's death

Nothing is beyond the touch of cyber crooks when it comes to seeking victims to expose to online threats, even when the subject is as sensitive as death, it has emerged.

The heart-wrenching death of award-winning English actress Natasha Richardson following a skiing accident in Canada is one such incident, according to online security firm Sophos.

In a blog posting on the subject, the firm's chief technology officer Graham Cluley revealed that compromised websites were being used by crooks to hit people looking for news on the death.

He said: "It appears that hackers are stuffing webpages with keywords - most likely scraping the content off legitimate news websites - in order to lure unwary surfers into visiting their dangerous sites and infecting their computers.

He went on to state that by filling their pages with the latest content on the incident, the crooks "make their attack quite timely and increase their chances of trapping victims".

Trapped victims risk having their computers infected by malware or even becoming victims of ID theft and online fraud.

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