Today, people gathered on twitter to discuss the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Other rumors swirled that maybe Harrison Ford or Jeff Goldblum also shuffled off the mortal coil. But here’s the thing….
Crowd psychology being what it is, it would take very little for a hacker to put up a rumor site, have people stop by, and either a)benevolently gain traffic and money through affiliate links or b) maliciously dump cookies, spyware, tracking codes, etc. on the target computer. While this isn’t within my skill set, think if you were only looking to drive traffic, all you have to do is watch twitter for trending topics, and link bait, and there you are.
We have to be careful not to be the sheep, not to be so easily distracted and led. Who knows what wolves are waiting in the bushes to pounce.