Are Electronic Greeting Cards Dangerous?
Lately every time I open my email, I have an electronic greeting card message in it. It used to be fun to open one of these messages and find a funny greeting from a good friend or relative, however now each ecard generally carries a dangerous payload of viruses, spyware, malware, and more. Sort of an electronic mixed cocktail of evil programs designed to do your computer harm. Don’t get me wrong, you may still receive “good” e-cards from time to time, but these mass mailed greetings in the last couple months are something you don’t want to open. The latest cards want you to click on a link and download a free copy of “Microsoft Data Access” so you can read the card. The popup message accompanying the install even says the file is from Microsoft Corporation. Don’t believe this for a second, the file msdataaccess.exe is a dangerous file, please do not open it.
