Warning: Whitney Houston autopsy video links on Facebook aren't what they seem

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Malware, Social networks, Spam

Whitney HoustonThe death of pop superstar Whitney Houston made headlines around the world this weekend, and it didn't take long for fraudsters and cybercriminals to cash in on the singer's death.

For instance, messages have been seen shared on Facebook claiming to link to a video of Whitney Houston's autopsy.

According to the messages, the video of Whitney Houston's autopsy "reveals a shocking secret that explains her death".

Here's what a typical message looks like:

 - Whitney Houstons autopsy reveals a shocking secret that explains her death

- Whitney Houstons autopsy reveals a shocking secret that explains her death.
[LINK]

Breaking News: Coroners autopsy reports reveals a dark past and secret life which tragically led to Whitney Houstons death.

Clicking on the link will take your browser which appears to show a YouTube video embedded on what looks like a Facebook webpage. However, a message on the page says that the video cannot be played as your version of Adobe Flash needs to be updated.

Whitney Houston video Flash download prompt

Of course, you should only ever download an update for your installation of Flash from the *real* Adobe website, so my recommendation is to be very wary about downloading any software that this bogus webpage might serve up to you, or any scam survey pages that it might direct you towards.

If you use Facebook and want to get an early warning about the latest attacks, you should join the Sophos Facebook page where we have a thriving community of over 160,000 people.

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One Response to Warning: Whitney Houston autopsy video links on Facebook aren't what they seem

  1. Robert Gracie says:

    The link to that page has been disabled now I checked it out last night and it comes up with the good old 404 Page Not Found Error

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About the author

Graham Cluley has worked in the computer security industry for more than 20 years, developing anti-virus software and doing quite a lot of talking about internet threats. He's won awards for his blogging, but is proudest of the text adventure games he wrote when he was still wearing short trousers. You can learn more about those (the games, not the trousers) at grahamcluley.com. Send Graham an email, subscribe to his updates on Facebook, follow him on Twitter and App.net, and circle him on Google Plus for regular updates.