Holiday Safety Tip: Avoiding Virus-Filled Holiday E-Cards

If there’s one universal sentiment about the internet, it is this: Spam sucks. Perhaps the only thing that rivals our hatred of e-mail spam is our hatred of viruses. Unfortunately, during the holiday season, these two blights on society join forces to become one unholy terror: the SPAMMY VIRUS-FILLED HOLIDAY E-CARD!

If you spend a lot of time chatting with friends and family through e-mail, you’re probably going to have to deal with an inbox full of holiday e-cards. Unfortunately, these e-mails can do more than simply annoy you or take up your time; they can also include viruses, worms, and other malware. Learning how to identity and neutralize a bad e-card is an important step in protecting your personal information from identity thieves and hackers.

To help protect your computer, never open attachments from someone you don’t know and, even then, be careful about what types of attachments you open. Executable files (indicated by their .exe file extension) are the most obvious attachments to avoid, though, to be safe, you should delete any suspicious e-mail. Don’t put your faith in a famous brand name, either. Just last week, the security company Red Condor identified an e-card attack that appears to be from the American Greetings website, BlueMountain.com, but is actually a malicious virus.

Make sure to check back to the ReputationDefender Blog later in the week for more holiday safety tips!

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