Warning Issued Against Electronic Holiday Greetings

Posted on December 6, 2002

SurfControl, a Web and email filtering company, has warned that a new email virus that poses as a greeting card is just one of the surprises in store for IT administrators during this holiday season. The company noted an increased risk of fake greeting cards this year that sneak software or viruses onto a computer. SurfControl urged IT administrators to set filtering software to prevent such infection.

SurfControl's security experts say that email trickery is on the rise and point to the latest fake email greeting card as an example. The greeting directs email recipients to open a link to view the card that actually contains a virus designed to attack the recipient's Outlook address book, sending unsuspecting colleagues, customers and others the virus egreeting. SurfControl warns IT administrators to take extra security precautions against the gifts that keep on giving -- viruses, spam and junk email.

"This email greeting card virus is just the latest in a problem that has reached epidemic proportions," said Steve Purdham, CEO of SurfControl. "Email borne viruses and spam are snowballing out of control. IT administrators should be thinking about extra layers of network security to avoid these problems. Risks will intensify as we enter the holiday season, and SurfControl Web and Email Filters, used in combination, can be especially useful in layering safeguards."

SurfControl's Purdham also reminded ecard recipients to be carefull. He said, "All Internet content we read, receive, and send carries a risk. People need to remember to not open email greetings from senders they don't know. And be especially skeptical of anything that asks a user to install a software executables."