It didn't take long for the spammers, scammers, and scumware makers to try to take advantage of Michael Jackson's sad passing.

SophosLabs brings news that,

"Just after about 8 hours of his demise, SophosLabs witnessed the first wave of spam messages employing the sad news in the subject line and body part to harvest victims’ email addresses."

A Computerworld.com article, which also mentions the SophosLabs blog, quotes Sophos security researcher Graham Cluely as saying,

"I wouldn't be surprised to see hackers claiming that they have top-secret footage from the hospital, perhaps [allegedly] taken by the ambulance people, that then asks you to install a video codec"

Then once you click on the supposed codec update link you're instantly infected with a virus / trojan. Blech.

Sad as it is to see criminals capitalizing on such events, we're not surprised. There's no depth too low for virus writers to stoop when it comes to trying to infect and take over your computer.

If you're unsure when the last time your A/V software was updated, you might want to take a look and see; if you're not yet running antivirus software, there's no time like the present. I guarantee the people responsible for attacks like these aren't going to be easing up anytime soon--if ever.