'Wacko Jacko' the subject of suicide spam scam

The clamour for news about Michael Jackson's child sex abuse case in the US has inevitably resulted in an attempt by virus writers to exploit the situation.

The number of web users searching for information on the controversial pop star has also soared during his much-publicised court case in Santa Maria, California, according to web monitoring firm Hitwise.

Today reports surfaced of an email doing the rounds which claims the controversial star failed in a suicide attempt. But several email security companies claim recipients following the link in the message body for more news will actually find a virus installed on their machines.

Although security firm Sophos admits the actual number of these emails seen is still only in the thousands it claims the scam serves as a reminder that "sick-minded" virus writers are continuing to look for social engineering techniques which will dupe recipients.

The hype surrounding Jackson's case meant it was only a matter of time before the first emails arrived exploiting the trial.

The email has the subject line 'Suicidal attempt'. It then offers a link for users to follow, which purports to offer a full report as well as extracts from a suicide note.

Carole Theriault, security consultant at Sophos, said: "If you click on the link, the website displays a message saying it is too busy, which may not surprise people who think it might contain genuine breaking news about Michael Jackson. However, this is a diversionary tactic. Behind the scenes the website is downloading malware onto the user's computer without their knowledge."

Sophos claims users will become infected with a Trojan called Troj/Borobt-Gen - though few other antivirus companies acknowledge the malicious code as an existing threat.

Certainly the demand for news is very real and with fans and detractors the world over hanging on every fresh revelation from the courtroom the internet has proven an invaluable source of information.

According to Hitwise, UK-based searches for Michael Jackson soared during the first weeks of the trial and are now picking up again as the world waits for a verdict. At its peak one in 10,000 internet searches sought information on the star.

Among the few terms to beat it for traffic in the past week is Live 8. Searches for information on the debt-busting concert event accounted for four in 10,000 searches.

Of those sites benefiting from the Jacko traffic clamour Google comes out top, with news.google.co.uk the top in the UK (11.09 per cent of referred traffic). The singer's own www.michaeljackson.com website is second with 6.97 per cent. The BBC's news site is fourth with 4.3 per cent.