E-cards and online postcards are becoming a greater threat on the internet...

Recently, I've been receiving dozens of fake greeting cards in spam messages. The FBI has been getting more and more of reports about electronic greeting cards containing spyware, viruses, trojans, and links to sites that infect people's computers. Electronic greeting cards are also referred to as e-cards or postcards.

The way that most of these cards work is that the initial spam email claims that you have a greeting card waiting for you, which was sent to you by a friend, family member, classmate, girlfriend/boyfriend, someone that has a crush on you, etc. (This tactic is known as "social engineering".) When you open the email, it instructs you to click on a link to go and get your greeting card. This malicious link could be to an attached file (such as spyware, a virus or trojan, or even a macro script). More commonly, it could be a link to a web site that has been specifically designed to infect your computer with viruses or trojans, or to infect your computer with spyware or a key logger in an attempt to get your user names and passwords, or even personal or banking information from you.

There have been many varieties of these fake greeting cards. Some claim to be from legitimate e-card companies, like Blue Mountain or Yahoo Greetings, etc. Others may even ask for donations, and look as if they are from legitimate charitable organizations, which puts your financial information at risk. Many of these are poorly designed, and easily spotted as fakes, however some (especially those that contain html and web graphics) will even copy the graphics from legitimate greeting card sites to try and convince you that they are authentic. There have even been a number of web sites that "claim" to provide free greeting cards, when in fact they actually collect all of the email addresses that the senders enter, and then sell these email collections off in bulk to spammers for big bucks!

For most of these fake greeting cards, there are some obvious signs that will show you immediately that they are fakes. If the greeting card doesn't address you by name, the card sender's name isn't included in the body of the email (or the name isn't familiar), and it's not a holiday, a birthday, or any other occasion that might warrant a card, then the e-card is most likely a scam. If the card requires that you install a special viewer or tries to download a file to your system, treat it like any other virus, cancel the download and scan your system with your antivirus software as soon as possible!

The FBI warns, "Please be cautious of all unsolicited e-mails. It is recommended not to open e-mails from unknown senders because they often contain viruses or other malicious software. If a message seems suspect, it probably is. Phishing attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and given the ease of creating a professional looking message from a spoofed source, HTML formatted e-mail provides a strong medium for social engineering attacks."

Be extra cautious:  If you receive a card from someone you know but you aren't quite sure it's legitimate, compose a new email to that person and ask if they sent you a card. (Don't reply using the email you received, the From address might be bogus.) Also, be extra careful about opening e-cards around holidays, as this is when most people are easily targeted by fake e-cards.

If you're the kind of person who likes to send e-cards to friends and family, it may be better if you simply send them a regular email message instead, and avoid sending e-cards altogether. (Personally, I've set up my own custom spam filters to delete all greeting cards, to avoid the threats of infection completely.) Besides, most people get tired of receiving nothing but tons of forwarded jokes and greeting cards from their friends and family anyways. Many people, like myself, would prefer to receive a personalized self-written email from their loved ones every once in a while, letting them know how you're doing. Being in the computer business, I sometimes receive up to 200 junk mails a day, and some days it's hard to tell who's a friend and who's a foe!

In summary: Let's all start using email for what it was originally intended for: to send messages, and not to forward junk, jokes, and the usual stories that we've received dozens of times over, and over, and over again! Electronic greeting cards are not worth it, they greatly slow down email communications across the internet as a whole, and in most cases they are quite impersonal compared to a simple, self-written email from the heart!