The sudden death of Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop," who passed away yesterday after suffering full cardiac arrest, not only shocked the world, but is now indirectly putting people at risk. Researchers from various security vendors warn that cyber-criminals are trying to profit from the unfortunate event and have already launched spam campaigns.

As soon as news of Jackson's death broke out, people flocked onto the Internet and started searching for information about the tragedy. The traffic generated was so massive, that it even temporarily knocked several major news websites offline and even affected Google.

As cyber-crooks have never backed down from capitalizing on a potential profitable event, regardless of how tragic it was, such as the crash of Air France Flight 447 or Natasha Richardson's death, it was rather predictable that this new happening would be exploited, and sooner rather than later.

"Every time a disaster happens or news about some celebrity reaches the media, malware writers try to take advantage of it. The most common attack vector is email. Watch out for spam offering links to 'news' or 'pictures' of deceased celebrities," Guilherme Venere advised on the McAfee Avert Labs blog.

And, soon enough, another antivirus vendor, Sophos, issued an alert about spam messages "employing the sad news in the subject line and body part to harvest victims’ email addresses." Rowland of SophosLabs Australia explains that, "The spammer claims she/he has vital information about the death of Michael Jackson to share with somebody, ie you," and warns that replying to such emails will indirectly confirm that your address is valid and active for the attacker to use in future campaigns.

Mr. Venere explains that other forms of attacks, such as malware distribution via e-mail and poisoning search results with malicious links, are also to be expected. He also points out that former Charlie's Angel Farrah Fawcett also passed away yesterday. Her death was somewhat overshadowed by that of Michael Jackson, but people looking for information about it also need to exercise caution.