Johnny Depp death rumours circulate online

Reports circulating online over the weekend suggesting that Johnny Depp had died in a car crash in France are not true.

Emails were being sent claiming that the star, who lives with his wife Vanessa Paradis in France, had died following an accident in Bordeaux.

Emails and search engine results contained links that sent readers to what appeared to be the CNN news site.

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According to the fake report, Depp's body was found in his car at the side of the road surrounded by alcohol bottles.

Johnny Depp RIP then became a trending topic on micro-blogging site Twitter leading to the rumours spreading further.

The report was not posted on the CNN news pages and the link actually sent readers to a look-a-like site with the URL Angelfire.com.

Malware authors are now exploiting the searches being made for news on the story to infect users computers, according to Sophos security expert Graham Cluely.

Results that link to videos of Johnny Depp's death are prompting people to install an 'Active X codec' on their computers and this will in fact install a Trojan horse instead.