Love Notes
The following was put out by our local cable company on internet security this time of the year! Watch for these!
Beware - "Love" Notes Are Lure In Valentine's Day Attack
The team behind the notorious Storm worm often takes advantage of holidays to launch attacks, and Valentine's Day is no exception. The worm is now using a Valentine's Day twist to try and infect users with malicious code. Be on the lookout this month for suspicious e-mails with subject lines about love. These "love" notes are actually designed to deliver a "poison kiss" to your computer.
The body of the message directs the recipient to a site featuring a large heart and a notification that says, "Your download should begin shortly. If your download does not start in 10-20 seconds, you can click here to launch the download and then press run. Enjoy!" If you receive one of these e-mails, DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK.
This Valentine's Day worm was originally packaged in a way that fooled most virus scanners. The SANS Internet Storm Center reported that initially only 4 out of 32 virus scanners were able to properly identify the downloaded file as Storm-infected prior to actual execution. Sophos, a world leader in enterprise IT security and control, says this worm is accounting for almost eight percent of overall e-mail traffic.
The Storm Gang changes the content of their attacks frequently, sometimes on a daily basis. To help protect your computer from spam like this, make sure you use and regularly update your computer's anti-virus software. In addition, do not click on website links contained in e-mail messages from unfamiliar or suspicious sources.
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