e-greetings may spring a Trojan trap

In this age of virtual reality, expressing your affection for the loved ones has never been easier.

But this Valentine's day, a love message from you delivered electronically could well lead your loved ones into a trap. For more, read on.

Exchanging electronic Valentine's cards and downloading romantic programmes from the Internet could expose your beloved computer to the risk of being swamped by viruses, says F-Secure's senior security specialist, Patrick Runald.

All the user has to do is click on the on the e-mail received, and it takes you to a page that asks for an installation of a fake Macromedia Flash Player. This fake player installs installs a BZub variant onto the system.

Tagged as Valenavir.A and Bzub.HZ, the Trojan is designed to steal information such as credit card information and on-line banking details from the user's computer.

F-Secure discovered the first sample of this Trojan at 15:30 GMT on February 13. The security firm identified the trojan within 40 minutes of its launch. "If you suspect that you might be infected by this trojan, make sure you scan your PC with an up-to-date antivirus programme," is F-Secure's advice.

"Computer users should keep a wary eye on any romantic messages received by e-mail, as many of them could contain malicious code," warns another release from security firm PandaLabs after detecting an increase in a worm dubbed Nurech.A. The worm hides in e-mails with subjects like 'Together You and I,' 'Til the End of Time Heart of Mine.'

People who open an attached file such as postcard.exe can end up infecting their computers.