Jonathan Alcorn / Reuters file
A Los Angeles County Coroner's van exits the Beverly Hilton Hotel with the body of Whitney Houston, who died in a hotel room there on Saturday.
By Suzanne Choney
Think you're going to see video of Whitney Houston's autopsy because of a link you clicked on in Facebook? You won't, and if you click on the various links being shared around the social network, you could be biting on a scam, or worse ? possibly letting a program onto your computer that could do damage.
While we've mentioned some of the online scams?that started almost immediately after Houston's death Saturday, the latest, on Facebook, may appeal to the more vulnerable who feel they're safer within the confines of the social network. They're not.
As the public?? and Houston's family?? awaits the results of an autopsy on the beloved singer, the latest round of messages on Facebook tease that the video "reveals a shocking secret that explains her death." Sophos Security points to what a "typical" autopsy scam message looks like:
Sophos Security
"Clicking on the link will take your browser (to a dialog box) which appears to show a YouTube video embedded on what looks like a Facebook webpage," writes Graham Cluley on Sophos' Naked Security blog. "However, a message on the page says that the video cannot be played as your version of Adobe Flash needs to be updated."
Whether your version of Adobe Flash needs to be updated or not, don't click "Install."
"You should only ever download an update for your installation of Flash from the *real* Adobe website, so my recommendation would be (be) very wary about downloading any software that this bogus webpage might serve up to you, or any scam survey pages that it might direct you towards," writes Cluley, a senior technology consultant for Sophos.
We've seen these same kinds of scams before with the death of other popular stars, and even with villains. Last year, right after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces, Facebook messages started springing up purporting to show video of his execution.
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