You Have Received a Greeting Card From . . . a Spammer
Internet spammers launched a widespread attack on e-mail inboxes this month. But instead of trying to lure users into opening a corrupted attachment, they're concealing a computer virus in a link to an online greeting card.
Postini, an e-mail security company, said it has seen about 275 million such messages since July 2. On average, the company sees about 700,000 viral e-mails per day worldwide. This week, there have been as many as 35 million in a single day because of the spike in e-card spam, said Adam Swidler, a senior vice president of Postini.
This week, the FBI warned consumers about greeting-card spam; earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission held a summit on the growth of malicious e-mail. Symantec, an antivirus company, also said it has seen a proliferation of online-greeting-card scams recently.
