AmericanGreetings.com Cautions Users of Fake Greetings

According to a recent warning from AmericanGreetings.com, a fraudulent e-mail is being sent to consumers, apparently dispatched from e-card@americangreetings.com and displaying the caption "You have got a new E-Card from your friend!"

The e-mail carries a malicious file attached as 'e-card.exe' or 'e-card.zip,' which on viewing leads to downloading of a computer virus currently being disseminated all over the world. Symantec, an online security firm, has identified this virus as W32.Ackantta.B@mm.

Security researchers further state that the malware is a bot or Trojan horse that represents a security threat for a compromised PC and/or its entire network. This Trojan contains an in-built SMTP engine that sends bulk messages and yields e-mails sent from e-cards@americangreetings.com when installed on the system.

As per the news reports, FBI's division of Internet crime is putting all the necessary efforts to conquer the vicious threat. Furthermore, AmericanGreetings.com has made its e-mail security web page up-to-date along with the similar pages on other websites receiving American Greetings company's support, such as the e-greetings on Egreetings.com and Yahoo MSN.

James Chou, CTO, AG Interactive, a part of American Greetings, states that the threat is an extremely frustrating experience for consumers; therefore, the company wishes to be certain that they are leaving no gaps in educating the consumers about how to receive their electronic cards safely, as reported by PRNewswire on February 27, 2009.

Chou also confirmed that AmericanGreetings.com never sends with attachments containing an e-card. Instead, he suggested that recipients visit the site's home page by manually entering the URL into the address bar of their Internet browser. Subsequently, when users reach the site, they can feed in the code from the original message and obtain their greeting.

Meanwhile, the e-greeting website suggests users to be confident that they know the card's sender by looking for his e-mail ID and/or name in the header, otherwise they should delete the e-mail.

In addition, users need to be particularly careful with e-mails whose 'from' field shows "secret admirer", as already noticed in the new scam. Furthermore, they must keep their Web browser up-to-date so that fraudulent websites get signaled.

Related article: American College of Physicians’ Website Hacked by North Carolina Businessman

» SPAMfighter News - 3/6/2009