Within a few hours of the closure of the video locker service Megaupload, scammers have started flooding social networking sites and online forums with fake links claiming that the site is back online.

Tens of thousands of unsuspecting people are being fooled into visiting phishing and scamming sites, which have absolutely nothing to do with the closed down Megaupload, TorrentFreak reported.

There is no official announcement of a replacement available yet of the popular a one-click hosting online service which facilitated content storage. However, as can be seen in the screenshot of Twitter below, hacker group Anonymous has also shared links to Megaupload, imparting the link a certain level of credibility.

It is advised to stay away from suspicious links, even if a trusted source or a friend shares it. Since many of the fake Megaupload links are in the form of numeric IP addresses, the most common being 109.236.83.66, it is impossible to identify the destination site just by looking at the site's name or URL.

The shutting down and indictment of owners and operators of the video locker service Megaupload came hot on the heels of unprecedented online blackouts against the proposed anti-piracy bills, shocking the Internet community.

The executives had been charged with operating a criminal enterprise that distributes pirated material, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday. Seven executives, including the site's founder Kim Schmitz aka Kim Dotcom, of the Hong Kong-based site were indicted on charges, including criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

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