Rowan Atkinson, famous for his role Mr Bean role, was falsely proclaimed dead, once again, on Fox News on Wednesday, 18 July. Surprisingly the death hoax turned out to be an attempt to breach data from people’s computers.
This isn't the first time that Atkinson has been a victim of false rumors. Similar posts claiming his death also circulated in 2016, attributed to a fake BBC news report .
Death hoaxes are not new in Hollywood. Different Hollywood celebrities have been victims of false death rumors such as Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Chan, Morgan Freeman and Paul McCartney.
According to reports, the fake news posts claiming Atkinson’s death tricked users into downloading the virus.
The post, according to HoaxSlayer.com ,was a picture of Atkinson that said “RIP 1955-2017,” along with a video.
However, when users clicked on the article, it displayed an error message that locked down the computer. This was followed by a support number on the screen, to help unlock their system again, Network 18 reported.
The call was apparently planned by some tech support spammers to trick users to give their credit card and banking details as a service charge for repairing their system.
The fraudsters also tried to trick users into downloading a software that allows them to control the user’s computer, steal files and install malware, HoaxSlayer further reported.
(With inputs from News18 and HoaxSlayer.com)
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