Valentine's Day online threats reported

2010-02-11

People looking for love on the internet have been encouraged to keep their wits about them and stay on the lookout for security risks of identity theft and scams this Valentine's Day.

BitDefender has advised against signing up to a dating service discovered through spam emails and recommended looking for good reviews of such websites.

"While there are many respectable and reliable e-dating services, online daters should be extremely careful when choosing the best service to meet their needs," said BitDefender UK managing director Nick Billington.

This Valentine's Day could see a number of other threats emerging, including email spam exploiting the event to advertise goods and services, BitDefender noted.

It also warned of graffiti and other kinds of spam distributed on social networks, which then direct users to malicious websites that spread Trojans.

A recent McAfee fourth quarter Threats Report showed that spammers jumped on headline stories last year, including tragedies like the Air France plane crash.

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