Fake Obituary sites redirect victims to scareware webpages

A newly discovered cybercriminal trend has leveraged fake obituary sites to send unknowing grievers to scareware web pages to execute its campaign.

Based on reports, these inappropriate contents within the redirection pages could potentially deploy malware. The scammers use sophisticated tactics to capitalise on the interest in obituaries that often follow a death.

They employ generative AI, or GenAI, to create fake obituaries, which they then optimise for search engines using SEO poisoning techniques. The primary objective of this tactic is to ensure these fraudulent pages rank high in search results, thus increasing the likelihood of unsuspecting visitors encountering them on popular browsers.

Once visitors access these fake obituary sites, they may be redirected to adult entertainment or e-dating sites. Alternatively, they might encounter CAPTCHA prompts that, if they click, activate web push notifications or popup ads.

Although these may initially appear as antivirus warnings, most are gateways to legitimate subscription-based antivirus downloads.

 

Scammers have exploited grieving individuals to make their scareware campaigns more efficient.

 

The scammers that use these scareware tactics exploit emotionally vulnerable individuals. In addition, the researchers highlighted the irony of encountering a fake virus infection scam while searching for the obituary of a loved one, underlining the threat actor’s cunning use of AI, social engineering, and search engine vulnerabilities to earn a substantial amount of revenue.

While these scams’ current focus is monetisation through affiliate rewards and pay-per-impression revenue, there are some speculations among various cybersecurity experts about its potential for developing more malicious content, such as malware delivery.

These operations are only exclusive to this newly discovered tactic of using fake obituaries. However, these campaigns often exhibit obvious signs of scam, such as overly sentimental language and impersonal tones.

In some instances, details about the deceased may be incorrect, or the person mentioned may not even be deceased.

This disturbing revelation shows the importance of exercising caution and vigilance while accessing online content, particularly during emotional vulnerability. Therefore, targeted individuals, especially the grieving ones, should seek the help of others in navigating the digital landscape to avoid looming threats.