The first spam observation of 2009

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It's been a week since I last posted, and I have noticed a trend in 2009 that continues on in the vain of 2008.  I mentioned in my end of year round-up that viruses were on the rise in 2008.  In 2009, I don't see much difference other than the mechanism of delivery - I'm seeing a whole bunch of e-card spam.  So far this year, I've seen the following in my Junk Mail Folder:

  • Happy greetings e-card is waiting for you
  • E-Card from (Nancy|Susan)
  • Greeting you with heartiest wishes
  • You've got a Happy Greeting Card!

The links go to some variant of smartgreetingcard.com and look quasi-legitimate, except that most e-card mail is generally sent with much more complicated HTML, not simple plain-text messages.

These links, of course, are links to malware-infected pages where the spammer will try to infect your computer with a virus and flip you into a botnet.  E-card spam is nothing new, we've seen it over and over again.  Some things never change.