Valentine's Day has come early – at least for cybercriminals. A host of emails doing the rounds may promise messages of love but actually have a nasty payload.

Security experts are warning that messages with subject lines such as "Falling In Love with You", "Special Romance" and "Sent with Love" are being sent by gangs who want to infect your PC with the Storm Trojan.

"It seems the hackers were too impatient to wait for St Valentine's Day this year before plucking on heart strings in their attempt to infect the unwary," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant.

According to security firm McAfee, the emails promise you a Valentine's message and contain a link that takes you to a web page with an image of a big heart.

A message at the bottom of the screen encourages you to click on a link if your download doesn't begin - but if you click on it, you will download a file called with_love.exe, which is actually the Storm Trojan.

Finnish security company F-Secure estimated that the rogue file is being updated every 15 to 20 minutes in an attempt to flummox anti-malware protection.

Trend Micro's David Sancho told Web User that once a PC becomes infected with the Storm worm, it starts propogating the malware itself.

"The moment you get infected you start serving the files to other users," Sancho said.

And this isn't the first sighting of the Storm Trojan, otherwise known as Dorf or Nuwar, this year - just after the festivities, Sophos warned of another attack by cybercriminals attempting to disguise itself as New Year greetings.

The Storm Trojan got its ominous nickname when it began circulating hidden in emails with subject lines relating to the freak weather seen in many parts of Europe last year.

But it is actually a little older than that, having first been seen on 19 January 2007 according to F-Secure - almost exactly a year ago.

www.sophos.com
www.mcafee.com

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