With the passing of three major entertainers this week, scammers and hackers are taking advantage of the situation as fans mourn the loss of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon.

US-CERT (Computer Emergency Readiness Team, part of Homeland Security) issued a statement on June 26th regarding spam campaigns, phishing attacks and malicious code targeting the deaths of these celebrities. 

Emotionally distraught and shocked fans provide a “mass vulnerability” that some fraudsters want to exploit to collect information and infect computers with malicious code.  In previous disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Asian Tsunami scams arose to take advantage of a large group of people sharing similar emotions.

Watch for charity and fan paraphernalia scams associated Jackson, Fawcett and McMahon. Some scams may claim to collect donations for charitable causes supported by the late stars. Others may attempt to collect credit card and bank account information as payment for charitable donations or for the purchase of celebrity memorabilia.

These scams do not result in any donations being made or souvenirs being delivered.  The consumer's financial info will be used to commit fraud on existing accounts.

• Record their email address for future spam usage.
• Download malware to computers and PDAs when email recipients click on a link in the email. Malware can include viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, and worms.
• Lure unsuspecting people into a phishing scam to get the consumer to reveal passwords and account numbers.

Be aware and be credit smart.  Loyal fans don't need any extra grief as they celebrate the lives and careers of these stars.