You know e-cards, you've probably sent a lot of them in your life - I sure sent my share of those. People like them and always enjoy getting one. But if you've read this year's cyber-security news, then you know that cyber-crooks have been using these cards for attacks. Besides the fact that this is very low, as people are unsuspecting about these cards, it's also efficient. But what about the real e-cards? Well, it seems that people don't give much of a damn about Internet fraudsters - an e-card's an e-card. Users still seem to trust the industry.

Even though there have been a lot of news items on the fact that hackers use these e-cards in their schemes and that you should be more careful when opening them, e-card usage has not decreased in percentage. In any case, some of the leaders in this industry have taken security measures against this type of malicious activity (going to explain later on how it works). For example, AmericanGreetings changed the form of their e-cards - they went and slipped 2 new text fields to fill up - one with the sender's name and one with his or her e-mail address. That way, when you get an e-card you get a better idea of who sent it to you, thus you can sort spam out yourself.

In any case, here's how the e-card thing worked: a spammer sends an e-card. When you click on it, or on a link in the message, you're sent to a malicious site and you get a virus infection, either a keylogger or a trojan bot, or who knows what else? These infections will rarely result in anything bad happening to your machine, they will rather screw with your life, since, for example, a keylogger can steal a lot of data.