Valentine's Day spam may carry Trojans
 

Electronic Valentine greeting cards put computer security at risk

11 February 2009
[Internet users must exercise caution when opening and clicking on links contained within unsolicited electronic greeting cards, as a Sophos poll reveals that eight out of ten systems administrators are worried that ecards pose a security risk. With virus writers, hackers and spammers disguising their attacks as bogus Valentines cards, computer users should not to get carried away trying to find out who their secret admirer might be.

While systems administrators are clearly well aware of the risks, it's essential that all employees are educated about the dangers and taught how to avoid falling victim. Cybercriminals are well known for using social engineering tactics to trick unwary users into inadvertently downloading malicious code - this Valentine's day will be no exception as the fraudsters will try and exploit all the fun and romance for their own ends.

"One of the hackers' favourite tricks is to disguise their attack as an ecard from an anonymous admirer, and as Valentine's Day approaches we can expect the fraudsters to redouble their efforts," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Sysadmins are sick to the back teeth of lovelorn workers allowing cybercriminals to breeze into corporate networks, and it wouldn't be a surprise if some want to pour cold water over the festivities and block all electronic Valentines."

"Everyone loves to receive a Valentine, but for those people who are left out this Saturday, the danger is that they'll be even more keen to open a romantic ecard they find sitting in their inbox when they go back to work on Monday," continued Cluley. "Our advice for would-be Romeos would be that maybe it's time to be a little bit braver and put pen to paper instead of finger to keyboard." ]
more-
http://www.itsecurityportal.com/itse...ty%20at%20risk



and

[Websense has warned of three key signs of fake sites: ‘Broken Hearts' sites show colourful images such as puppy dogs or a picture of 12 pretty hearts and ask ‘Guess, which one is for you?'. The web page however is one big image and a single click from a tricked user commences the download of Trojans named “onlyyou.exe” or “youandme.exe”, which can connect to remote websites to receive commands and send information about the compromised system.


Valentine's Day spam detected as carrying Trojans
‘I am your friend' uses social networking tricks to get users to visit fake sites, with Websense claiming that a popular technique at the moment is spam email pretending to originate from social networking sites – complete with love hearts and cartoon characters. Clicking through to the link would download a Trojan designed to steal log in credentials for banking sites.
more-
http://www.scmagazineuk.com/More-Val...rticle/127125/

http://www.avertlabs.com/research/bl...-on-the-loose/


If you get any emails and you don't know the sender or it has an anonymous sender - do not click on it or follow any link it gives you.