It pains me to write about this at all, but as despicable as this might appear, cyber criminals have started to take advantage of those that have been affected by the recent tragedy in Boston – which pretty much means everyone with a pulse.

Trend Micro is reporting -

Mary Ermitano-Aquino noted a spam outbreak of more than 9,000 Blackhole Exploit Kit spammed messages, all related to the said tragedy that killed at least three people and injured many more. Some of the spammed messages used the subjects “2 Explosions at Boston Marathon,” “Aftermath to explosion at Boston Marathon,” “Boston Explosion Caught on Video,” and “Video of Explosion at the Boston Marathon 2013″ to name a few.

Sophos NakedSecurity is also reporting similar upticks –

Messages spammed out by attackers claim to contain a link to video footage of Monday’s terrorist activity in Boston, with subject lines such as “2 Explosions at Boston Marathon”…..If you make the mistake of clicking on the link, however, you are taken to a website which – while showing you genuine YouTube videos of the the horrific incident – attempts to infect your computer with a Windows Trojan horse that Sophos products detect as Troj/Tepfer-Q.

Unfortunately this is not just specific to emails, it appears that this is bleeding into all mediums, to include Facebook and Twitter. Aside from it being highly disturbing, all we can do is spread the word so that friends and families are not affected while emotionally distraught.

I plead with you that if you want to contribute and / or are interested in what is going on avoid clicking on social media and email links and go directly to known media outlets. Also, please don’t donate to random organizations, stick with known reputable organizations that you can verify.