Who's Out to Get Twilight?

Hackers who are plotting take advantage of interest in Stephenie Meyer's new novella, as well as Eclipse, that's who

These are dangerous times to be a Twilight fan's computer.

If an online-security company's right, hackers are plotting to crash the upcoming release of Stephenie Meyer's new novella, as well as the big-screen debut of Eclipse.

Here's how the dirty-tricks campaign could go down:

On Monday, when Meyer's The Short Life of Bree Tanner gets dropped online, PC Tools predicts, PDFs of the story will start popping up all over the place—in search results, on fan sites, etc. No ordinary PDFs, these ones will be laced with computer-infiltrating malware. And your computer will be in the virtual hands of hackers.

PC Tools' Erich Andren sees a similar scenario playing out as Eclipse's June 30 opening day approaches. 

"With the movie release, you'll go onto fan sites, and [the sites'll say], 'Watch the new full movie right here on your computer,' and the Website will start installing software," Andren told us.

There are two basic ways to protect you and your hard drive: One, stick to well-lighted corners of the Web—i.e., read Bree Tanner (for free) at Meyer's Official BreeTanner.com site; and, two, update and/or upgrade your security software. We'd add a third tip—don't download bootlegs, dummy—but you already know you're not supposed to do that. Right?

At the end of the day, Andren says Twilight fans shouldn't take the "poison PDF" plot personally. 

"The hackers are going to where the people are," he says. "Generally, they don't have a vendetta against anyone."