A Perfect Valentine’s Day

As in past years, Internet users can expect to see numerous emails this weekend with links to malicious downloads, which often have subject lines related to Valentine's Day. In 2010 cybercriminals are also exploiting social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Social engineering remains cybercriminals preferred technique for deceiving users. In these cases, cybercriminals obtain confidential information from users by convincing them to take a series of actions. They use a carefully selected social engineering tactic to convince users to hand over their data or install a malicious program, which captures information and sends it to fraudsters.

Planning a romantic Valentine’s Day for your loved one? There is seemingly no end to what you can do to add even more sparkle to this "dreamy" day. Perhaps a bottle of wine, flowers, or a lovely gift to impress him/her—and if you aren’t with anyone, there are even dating services available that provide you with options to meet a date!

Valentine’s Day is a great target. We’ve observed several spam email message styles related to this upcoming event. Gift options, flower delivery, dating service, med spam to spice up your relationship, and much more.

Read on to see the common header lines that Symantec has tracked relating to Valentine’s Day so far.

Meanwhile, some practical tips on hand:

*Don't open e-mails or messages received on social networks from unknown senders.

*Do not click any links included in e-mail messages, even if they come from reliable sources. This rule applies to messages received through any mail client, as well as those in Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks or messaging applications.

*If you do click on any such links, take a close look at the page you arrive at. If you don't recognize it, close your browser.

*Do not run attached files that come from unknown sources. Stay on the alert for files that claim to be Valentine's Day greeting cards, romantic videos or another related propaganda.