Reuters Money

It was just hours after the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed that the notorious al Qaeda leader would be reborn as scam bait.

Suckers really are born every minute, you know. And the Bin Laden scams are a good demonstration of that.

Facebook pages (where all of your friends can see that you got sucked in) were getting peppered with invitations to see video of bin Laden’s death or pictures that you couldn’t see anywhere else. Not just any video, mind you, but “shocking video” or “Watch the Osama Shoot Down.”

Who wouldn’t want to take a peek after that? At least one of those pages picked up 60,000-plus “fans” before disappearing as others quickly filled the void. One later in the evening had 40,000 “fans.”

That particular iteration on Facebook seeks to get users to cut and paste some coding in their browsers that would run a malicious program. It comes right after you’re asked to take a survey. Hopefully, the idea of a survey when you’re supposed to be watching video of a man being shot to death would be a turn-off and protect some folks from getting their computers infected.

And it’s not just Facebook, where scams are abundant; bin Laden was making the rounds on email, too. In fact, by Tuesday night, the situation had gotten so bad that the FBI issued a warning about bin Laden-baiting.

“The FBI warns computer users to exercise caution when they receive emails that purport to show photos or videos of Usama [sic] bin Laden’s recent death,” the FBI said in a statement. “This content could be a virus that could damage your computer. This malicious software, or ‘malware,’ can embed itself in computers and spread to users’ contact lists, thereby infecting the systems of associates, friends and family members. These viruses are often programmed to steal your personally identifiable information.”

As is the case with these sorts of scams, computer users should avoid clicking on the links — even if they appear in emails from people you know. The reason is in the FBI statement. The virus can, as most folks with email know, send emails from other people’s accounts.

If you don’t click the link, cut and paste code or otherwise activate the malicious software, you’ll avoid whatever harm was intended.

The whole idea of using something from the news, particularly something as salacious as this, is that human nature can’t resist certain temptations. For some, the temptation is getting something for nothing. And for others, it’s seeing pictures or videos of a dead body.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a joint venture of the FBI, the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National White Collar Crime Center dispensed the following advice:

• Adjust the privacy settings on social networking sites you frequent to make it more difficult for people you know and do not know to post content to your page. Even a “friend” can unknowingly pass on multimedia that’s actually malicious software.
• Do not agree to download software to view videos. These applications can infect your computer.
• Read e-mails you receive carefully. Fraudulent messages often feature misspellings, poor grammar, and nonstandard English.
• Report e-mails you receive that purport to be from the FBI. Criminals often use the FBI’s name and seal to add legitimacy to their fraudulent schemes. In fact, the FBI does not send unsolicited e-mails to the public. Should you receive unsolicited messages that feature the FBI’s name, seal, or that reference a division or unit within the FBI or an individual employee, report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.