Another Holiday, Another Virus With Valentines Day right around the corner another opportunity to spread viruses and malware arises. The FBI and security organizations around the world are warning internet surfers to be on the lookout and be careful. The culprit this time is the Storm Worm and it is diguised as an innocent Valentines Day e-Card. Once you click on the link to get "your card" malware is downloaded onto your machine ... and you get no love from the malware. Instead, you are part of the Storm Worm Botnet. Botnets are typically set up to facilitate criminal activity such as spam e-mail, identity theft, denial of service attacks, and spreading malware to other machines on the Internet.

Why Valentines Day?
The Storm Worm uses holidays and special events to expand their network when internet surfers are most susceptable to these "innocent" emails. This type of attack is common during anytime of the year when users let their guards down.

What do I do to protect myself?

If you don't know who an email is from, do NOT open it.

Make sure you have active anti-virus and anti-malware software on your computer

Run your Windows updates AND your security updates

Do not use multiple anti-virus or anti-malware products as they can interfere with each other.

  ¶ 7:53 AM