On 13 May 2014 another album with his compositions Michael Jackson by name Xscape went public. This reissue of Jackson's collection of songs has been eagerly awaited by music fans since its announcement in March 2014. News of the album's release made Michael Jackson's name headline news and the Spammers, as expected, were quick to respond to her exploit.
This spam campaign uses a simple email that is crafted to look like personal mail. He uses the name of MichaelJackson and some of his song titles to create attractive messages for the subject of the email. The content of the email contains a link along with a general comment. The message is signed by a name, as shown in the 1 image, in an attempt to give the impression that someone you know sent you the Link email for the new Jackson album. The URL in your email body redirects to a false pharmacydomain that promises cheap prescription drugs.
Below you will see some of the topics that appear on the subject line:
- Subject: $ Planet Earth (Michael Jackson Poem)
- Subject: * Song list by MichaelJackson *
- Subject: * MichaelJackson's unreleased song list *
- Subject: [Hold My Hand (Michael Jackson and Akon)]
Image 1. Example of it spamEmail for MichaelJackson
Symantec expects more spam in the near future that will take advantage of this news and believe it to be part of phishing attempts or contain malware -malware.
Symantec advises users to follow these best practices:
- Do not open emails from unknown senders
- Don't do it click on links from suspicious emails
- Never give personal information to suspicious websites as they may have been created for phishing purposes
- Keep their security software up to date to stay protected from phishing attacks and malware
