People looking to scam the general public are often more than willing to capitalize on the death of a celebrity – such as Prince, who passed away Thursday – by deploying emails, social media posts, and text messages carrying malicious links and attachments.

Fraudsters have already begun circulating phishing emails and social media posts that claim to offer access to Prince's last words on video. These tactics are similar to the social engineering tricks scammers used to exploit the deaths of other celebrities, such as Robin Williams.

Regardless of how users are deceived, they could end up dealing with infected workstations, divulging personal information or unleashing ransomware onto their network.

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Roy Urrico

Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).