Spamming, in most cases, is illegal. So it’s worth wondering what other bad deeds spammers are wrapped up in.

That’s why recent reports describing a spammer’s death were so intriguing.

However, according to McAfee researchers, the event was actually a hoax – and the website announcing the death was registered on Oct. 11, hours before the reports appeared on it.

“Plus, neither Russian sites nor Google have ever heard of this particular spammer (which would be impossible as he is depicted as one of the most prolific). And there is no trace of this murder case in the news, on TV or on the web. In a word – it is definitely a hoax.”
- Igor Muttik, McAfee Avert Labs Blog, Oct. 12, “Two dead spammers? Again.”

Alex Eckelberry, Sunbelt Software president and CEO, said on his company’s blog that the hoax site may be a ploy to infect visitors with malware.

“I wouldn’t encourage visits to this hoax site. There’s no malware on it and you’re not going to get infected. But given where this thing is hosted (and the fact that it is tracking visits), why bother? (If you’re seriously paranoid, you might even go so far as to use TOR to anonymize yourself.)”