I Love You…

… but only if you click on this link.

Yes folks, it’s that time of year again when the phishers are out in force playing on the heart strings – Valentine’s Day. You would have thought that, by now, people wouldn’t click on links or open attachments from those who they don’t know, but they do. It’s even worse on Valentine’s Day, when half the fun is not knowing who your secret admirer is… with good old ’snail mail’ there is something exciting about looking at the post mark and trying to decipher the writing – it’s a little different in the electronic world. The bits (ones and zeros) could have come from anywhere and by anyone – so if you get an electronic Valentine’s message, don’t open it… and if the person who sent it asks whether you got it… just say “I would have thought I was worth a stamp!”

(While I’m here… the other side of this is impersonation, which in this case could lead to some general mischief making… so if you get a ’strange’ email, IM, text message or post on your social networking site from someone you know saying something you didn’t expect – don’t jump to the wrong conclusion… it might just be a friend-of-a-friend playing a prank! It’s tough to decipher hand writing to figure out who really sent what, its nigh on impossible to do the same on the Internet.)

February 13, 2009 | Filed Under Phishing, impersonation, security 

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