Another virus/scam: "You've received a postcard from a family member!"

We all get e-cards from friends. Click on the link provided, get the card. Or sometimes sign in or create an account and get the card (and on a spam list).

The latest virus scam is to pretend to send a postcard. If you click on the link provided, however, you go to a Web page that injects a virus through your Web browser--depending on which browser you have and whether you've patched it and/or secured it lately against "phishing" sites.

How to tell it's a scam? First, it's not addressed to anyone. Second, it just says "your family member." Regular ones don't say that--and there's no personal message, as you usually get, and no identification of who the family member might be, which is also very odd.

Third, notice the URL they want you to click on. URLs can be very revealing. The are often nonsense letters and numbers. IN this case, the URL they wanted me to click on said "http://notme.hk/?" followed by a string of numbers and letters. HK is Hong Kong, I believe - I don't get ecards from card companies in Hong Kong. And the domain says "notme" - the other one I got was from "catcher.hk" -catcher - I'll bet!

Again, if you have Phishing turned on in your Internet Explorer Version 7, it will flag this when you try to click it. In general, though, be suspicious a lot.

I'VE ALSO BEEN GETTING emails claiming to be confirmations of discounts or free coupons from major vendors. These are frauds too. Look carefully at who it's sent to, and what the URL looks like. If it's Macy's, it will probably say "www.macys.com/coupon25432" or something. If it's a phish from Russia, it will say something like "www.macy.org/?sdf244a543243gk662f999g"

You want a coupon, use your junk mail from the Post Office like everybody else....