Facebook scammers prey on Steve Jobs death

Facebook scammers have seized on the death of Apple co-founder and visionary Steve Jobs by posting malicious content claiming to be giving away free iPads ‘in memory of Steve’.

The posts, which appeared online Thursday morning, have followed a spate of similar instances where the deaths of celebrities and well-known figures have been taken advantage of by Internet scammers.

[Article: Steve Jobs changed the business world- four times]

Linking to pages which offer free products and prizes, the content is localized to where it is accessed from. The links have been clicked by around 20,000 Facebook users, according to Graham Clueley, Senior Technology Consultant at Sophos Security.

“These scammers have reacted very quickly to Steve Jobs’ passing, showing entrepreneurship in trying to get money from Facebook users,” Cluely told Yahoo! News. “The cyber criminals are motivated by money, there are no depths too low for them to stoop. They have no qualms about posting this after the death of a well-known person like Steve Jobs”.

“They make more money the more traffic they can direct to websites, driving people to become customers, or take online surveys and competitions,” he added. The money-making scheme follows a similar ploy on Facebook following the death of Amy Winehouse.

“These are vultures who don’t care about anything, I was shocked but surprised because they do it every time,” Get Safe Online Managing Director Tony Neate told Yahoo! News. “They do it with natural disasters, deaths and any opportunity available - they will jump on anything that will make them money.”

[Gallery: Steve Jobs' life in pictures]

“It will take in some people and I have no doubt over the next few days we will see additional ones coming out, these criminals will think of other avenues to go down. They will use anything to get money, I think this is what we have to be aware of - don’t be one of the people conned by this.”

"You have got to be careful, you need to remember that nothing is particularly free in this world and be wary that they are preying on your emotions.”