Valentine's Day Greeting Cards
Tips to stay safe

A love letter could be a heart breakers says AVG CEO JR Smith. You may think you are opening a Valentine from a loved one but in reality it's a virus.

Here are some hints and tips to stay safe on Valentine’s Day.

• E-card companies don’t send cards as attachments. If you receive an e-card notification with an attachment, delete the message and attachment immediately
• If you don’t recognize the e-card sender’s name, delete the message immediately
• If the subject line says something generic and impersonal like “You've received an e-card from a class-mate!” or –“You’ve received a postcard from a family member!”, chances are the message is not safe to open
• If the e-card notification contains a clickable link that includes “.exe” or an unfamiliar website name – especially if an IP address appears when you hover your mouse cursor over the link- it’s not a legitimate card link.

You may be thinking, “If I delete, the message and it’s real, there goes that relationship.” Or, “Maybe Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift really are sending me a Valentine’s Day greeting.” To be safe, AVG recommends the following:

• E-mail the sender and ask if you should have received an e-card from them and, if so, from which site
• Make sure both the sender’s name and the name or URL of a legitimate e-card company’s website are included in the subject line
• Check the “From” address to make sure you recognize it. Some e-card companies will also include the sender’s name and address in the body of the email notification itself
• Legitimate e-card notifications should include a clickable link to the card on the card company’s website as well as a URL you can copy and paste into a browser (it’s always safer to copy and paste a link from an email than to click directly)

AVG offers LinkScanner to their customers that ensure links leading to infected sites aren’t allowed.