Be Careful For Valentines Cards

Valentines day use to be a time when loved ones would send cards in the mail wishing for a happy Valentines on February 14th. Like so many other things from the past we no longer communicate in a manner like mailing cards or calling people on the telephone for that matter. The Internet has turned us into high speed communication junkies. We send a quick email to someone to remind them to pick up milk on the way home from work. We send a Instant Message to see if you are going to the bar after work or to make sure your picking up the kids at daycare. And now we send electronic Valentine's cards to our loved ones so they can read while driving into work from their Blackberry. Yes, I do read a few emails while I am driving.

Hackers are very smart individuals. I've always said if we can put hackers to good use we might solve a number of problems on our Earth. But hackers will be hackers. I've always been fascinated by the cleaver ways hackers have studied human behavior and have adapted their strategy to penetrate our computers to steal personal information.

We have seen hackers disguise email to look like legitimate 'e cards' with a URL hoping you would click on the link, launching a Trojan to gain entry into your computer to start sending files to a server somewhere in a foreign country, or YOUR country for that matter.

In 2009, I expect to see even more of this due to our down economy and hackers are growing in numbers and will prey on anyone they can steal from.

I'm asking you to be vigilant when you get email that contains a greeting card, even if it's from someone you know, even if it looks authentic. DON'T open it. It might not be from who you thought was sending it, it might unleash a program onto your computer that will be difficult to remove or even know its there for that matter.

My advice. Call the person that sent you the e card. Tell them you got the email and you wanted to call and thank them for thinking of you. Let them know that you do not open emails that might contain a program, because you are not sure what its going to do to your computer and that you can't afford to damage your files, etc. They will understand.

Who knows! Maybe next year your loved ones will send you a Valentines card in the regular snail mail. A blow to the hackers. But like I said earlier, hackers are smart and study what we click and don't click. They will try something more cleaver next time.