Easter is today and Passover, which goes on for a week, began two days ago.  While these holidays are a happy time for people celebrating these holidays, they also are another opportunity for scammers.  A common holiday scam involves phony electronic greeting cards which download malware.  Emails are circulating in which you are told to click on a link in the email to view an E card purportedly being sent to you by a friend. The truth is that there is no E card and if you click on the link you will download malware that enables an identity thief to steal all of the personal information from your computer and make you a victim of identity theft or download malware such as ransomware that will lock your computer, encrypt all of your data and threaten to destroy your data if you do not pay a ransom.

TIPS

A legitimate electronic greeting card will always tell you exactly from whom it was sent.  Phony electronic greeting cards do not name the person who sent you the card.  The links in phony emails also generally do not appear to be connected to a legitimate E card company.  The safest route to follow if you get such an email is to ignore it if it does not tell you from whom the card is being sent, but even if it does give a first name, you should still be skeptical.  Contact the person to confirm that they indeed sent you an E card before clicking on the link to take you to the card. The best rule to follow is never to click on any link in any email unless you have confirmed that it is legitimate.

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