Spammers Set for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day brings excitement for celebrating love and affection between dear ones. Spammers are gearing up for Valentine’s Day with several offers like product spam, gift cards, personalised cards, and financial spam. Symantec has been observing Valentine’s Day-related spam since early January and we have recently seen a spike in product spam related to the event.

Below are Valentine’s Day related spam samples:

Subject: An original gift for Valentine’s Day

Subject: Take Her Breath Away

Subject: Super great designer watches

Subject: Personalized gifts for your Valentine

Subject: Very Hush-Hush Valentines Day Offer

Subject: The best Valentines gifts

Subject: Quick and Easy Valentine’s Day Gifts

Subject: $19.99 Flowers for Valentine’s Day + FREE Vase

Spammers promoting fake product offers at discounted price and the URL mentioned in the message redirects the user to the spam Web page which asks for personal information.

We are also observing interesting phishing attacks based on the Valentine’s Day theme. The domains used in phishing attacks resemble the name of the event.

http://www.valentinegirlxxxx.co.uk/~friday/myca/us/logon/action.html

http://www.valentinegirlxxxx.co.uk/~logic/us/myca/logon/action.html

http://valentinexxx.org/~bloom/help/weurhwe9urh9w[removed]/Login.htm

Last year’s statistics show that product spam was the most popular spam tactic. Continuing that trend, we expect product spam to remain the most dominant compared to other spam categories.

Symantec advises our readers to be cautious when handling unsolicited or unexpected emails. Updating antispam signatures regularly helps prevent personal information from being compromised. We at Symantec are closely monitoring the Valentine’s Day spam attacks to keep our readers updated.