Spammers seem to be taking advantage of the Christmas holiday season to spread viruses and malwares. Today, I received a message “You’ve received A Hallmark E-Card!” but after opening the email, I realized the ecard may not have come from one of my friends. Why?
1. The ecard does not contain any of my friends’ name.
2. My email gave this warning: “Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information.”
Anyway, I tried sending myself a legitimate hallmark ecard and realized what I have previously received is indeed a fake hallmark ecard. Links from these hallmark email cards may contain malware and hallmark card virus. I am not sure though if this is what they call as the hallmark postcard virus or the “postcard from hallmark virus”.
Anyway, I made a comparison between the real hallmark email greetings ecard and the fake one. Hopefully this will help people distinguish a real hallmark ecard from the fake one:
| Real hallmark ecard | Fake Hallmark ecard | |
| Subject | A Hallmark E-Card from John Doe* | You’ve received A Hallmark E-Card! |
| Sender | Sender’s email (example, johndoe@ymail.com) | hallmark. com <notifications@hallmark.com> |
| Body Content | John Doe has sent you a Hallmark E-Card .
If you recognize this name, click the link to see your E-Card. Visit http://www.hallmark.com/getecard Enter your e-mail address in the Original Recipient’s E-Mail Address box. Enter EG0246331000080 in the Confirmation Number box. Click Display Greeting. Want to send an E-Card too ? Visit www.hallmark.com/ecards To view Hallmark’s privacy policy or for questions, visit www.hallmark.com, and click the links at the bottom of the page. |
A Friend has sent you a Hallmark E-Card.
If you recognize this name, click the link to see your E-Card. Visit http://www.hallmark.com/getecard Enter your e-mail address in the Original Recipient.s E-Mail Address box. Enter EG0694262772475 in the Confirmation Number box. Click Display Greeting. Want to send an E-Card too ? Visit www.hallmark.com/ecards To view Hallmark’s privacy policy or for questions, visit www.hallmark.com, and click the links at the bottom of the page. |
* Assume sender’s name is John Doe
December 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Thanks for the tips Tim. Caution should always be observed these days even when opening Christmas holiday ecards.
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:15 am
However, there are a few precaution that one needs to be aware of when one receives ecards.
* Make sure you recognize the sender’s name. The sender’s FULL name should ALWAYS be included in the subject line (and sometimes in the “from” field) of the email.
* The web site should be easily identified in one or more of the following places: the “from” field, the subject line, or in the email itself.
* Do NOT click any links with simple IP address. In a fake ecard email, the IP address may be hidden and can only be seen by hovering your cursor over the link or right clicking on the link to view properties. The link should not be a series of number (e.g. 169.180.1.15, commonly referred to as an IP address).
* An ecard email should NOT have any attachment of any kind. The recipient will go to the web site to “pick up” (i.e. view) the ecard.
* Legitimate ecard emails will always include an option to pick up the ecard by typing the web site address and enter a code.
* Use a webmail or email application that has good spam filter. My experience with Gmail has been very good. It filters out almost all spam mail.
http://www.ojolie.com/blog/2008/11/practice-safe-ecard-sending.html