Cybercriminals Targeting Valentine’s Day

Cybercriminals are continuing to exploit Valentine’s Day with holiday-themed malware as a way to trick users and infect computers, according to a new report from PandaLabs.

Cybercriminals Targeting 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.

“The continued use of social engineering by cyber-crooks is a good indication of the high infection rate that this technique achieves. The technique works well, so criminals will continue to use it until people stop falling for it,” explains Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs.

PandaLabs offers these tips to avoid computer threats this Valentine’s Day:

*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 p