Beware the ‘L’ word on V Day

Valentine’s Day is coming up and hackers are preparing. They’re betting that consumers get weak in the knees at the mention of the ‘L’ word.

A decade ago, the I LOVE YOU virus (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/736080.stm) spread from one machine to another since few consumers used protection. A decade later, “iloveyou” is the fifth most common password (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/technology/21password.html), “lovely” is number 18, “loveu” is number 23 and “loveme” is number 43.

This year, hackers will likely concoct a special Valentine potion that uses the promise of being secretly admired combined with our prevailing addiction to sharing personal information on social networks like Facebook. How will it work?

First, hackers easily get a complete list of friends for many users. Then the miscreants send to that certain someone a Valentine message seemingly coming from a friend. Urged to click a Valentine’s Card to retrieve virtual chocolates or roses, you, uh, end up with a virus.

“The success of such a campaign is in numbers. For this, the hacker adds a key ingredient – automation. Using an automated tool, the hacker scrapes friends lists from Facebook as well as turns them into a phishing mail, all in a single click of the mouse, to spread their virus,” explained Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman.

What can consumers do?

“First, look up who sent you the Valentine’s greeting and make sure it’s legitimate. Chances are your 5th grade teacher did not and still does not have a crush on you.  Chances are your neighbour isn’t suddenly into knowing you intimately,” explained Shulman.

Take to heart these recommendations:

·         Do not follow links or download software referencing unsolicited spam.

·         Update your computer with the latest patches.

        ·         Ensure your anti-virus is enabled and up-to-date.

·         If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.  Nothing bad will happen if you simply hit ‘delete.’

About Imperva

Imperva, the Data Security leader, enables a complete security lifecycle for business databases and the applications that use them. Over 4,500 of the world’s leading enterprises, government organisations, and managed service providers rely on Imperva to prevent sensitive data theft, protect against data breaches, secure applications, and ensure data confidentiality. The award-winning Imperva SecureSphere is the only solution that delivers full activity monitoring from the database to the accountable application user and is recognised for its overall ease of management and deployment. For more information, visit www.imperva.com.

Media queries

David Frost

PR Deadlines Pty Ltd, for Imperva

Phone:   +61.2.4341 5021

Mobile:  +61 (0) 408 408 210

Email:   davidf@prdeadlines.com.au