Valentine’s Day Spam Rising Sharply

Security researchers are detecting a strong spike in Valentine’s Day spam as the holiday approaches. Fake greeting cards and spam hawking gift cards, fake designer goods, flowers, and financial services seem to be the most popular. It’s believed that the spammers behind this campaign may be looking to steal the credit card info of anyone who falls for the ads and actually buys something from one of the spam sites.

Spam levels always rise when a holiday or special event approaches. This current wave not only includes Valentine’s Day spam, but spam targeted at cricket fans. That spam offers fake tickets to the upcoming Cricket World Cup.

With tax season upon us here in the United States, it’s not unreasonable to expect IRS themed spam to rise as well, preying on those looking for refunds. A previous spam campaign claimed to offer videos of the best Super Bowl ads but when recipients clicked on the link they were directed to a malicious site that tried to install malware via a fake codec or software update.

Valentine’s Day spam has even hit Facebook via a rogue app that pretends to post a love poem on a friend’s wall, but in reality tricks people into taking surveys and spams the walls of the victim’s friends list. Scammers do this as a way to make fraudulent but lucrative affiliate or ad revenue.

If your company is planning to send out Valentine’s Day themed ads to your customers, be careful because it’s likely they may end up in spam filters. To make it clear they are legit, address the customer by name and make it clear who the message is from. Use restraint as well, unlike the company that sends me 2-3 ads a day everyday, insuring the chances of me doing business with them is very slim.