As per the information revealed by Gary Warner, Director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Michael Jackson-focused spams have been increasing in volume. The messages infect the computers with a virus that extracts users’ data pertaining to account numbers and passwords!

The most familiar trap used by spammers and scammers is to send e-mails that purportedly offer a glimpse of what is being said to be unseen pictures and videos of Jackson’s performances. There are also some supposed samples of music, which the “King of Pop” is said to have never released.

The attachments that these spam e-mails ask the users to click release either a worm or virus, or even provide links to spurious Web sites that ask for personal information on one pretext or the other.

Commenting on the celebrity-focused spam activity making rounds on the Internet, Warner said: “We've been tracking the cyber criminals behind this spam and the associated virus for many weeks, but they have shifted their strategy by embedding their virus into an e-mail that claims to link you to a Web site that will reveal Michael Jackson's killer.”

While Warner says that the most recent spam message reads “Michael Jackson was killed ... but who killed Michael Jackson,” computer security software maker Sophos has said that the spam subject line reads: “Remembering Michael Jackson.”