ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- PandaLabs, the anti-malware laboratory of Panda Security, has released tips to help consumers protect themselves against Valentine's Day-themed scams. February 14^th is quickly approaching and couples around the world are getting ready to celebrate with the traditional exchange of presents and romantic cards. Unfortunately, cyber-criminals are well aware of this, too, and take advantage of holidays like this to trick users and infect as many computers as possible.

"In the coming days, there will be an increase in the number of emails in circulation with links for downloading romantic greeting cards, videos, gift ideas, and Facebook and Twitter messages related to Valentine's Day," explained Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs. "However, not all of them will be legitimate. In many cases they will be just scams designed by cyber-criminals to infect computers and steal confidential information through social engineering techniques."

Social engineering techniques are used by cyber-crooks to trick users into handing over their data, or installing a malicious program which captures information and sends it to the fraudsters. Today, most people use social media sites like Facebook or Twitter to communicate, so special care must be taken with messages and links received on these networks. One popular cyber-criminal tactic involves posting links to sensational news stories or hard-to-resist offers to grab victims' attention.

Another infection source is email. "Many of us still remember the infamous "I Love You" worm, which managed to spread and infect computers around the world simply through a love letter supposedly sent by one of your contacts," said Luis Corrons. "Today, users are more likely to receive spam messages with links to online shops with too-good-to-be true offers, bills for purchases they haven't made, and all sorts of other scams aimed at tricking them and infecting their computers."

PandaLabs offers users a series of tips to avoid falling victim to computer threats:

• Do not run attached files that come from unknown sources. Stay on alert for files that claim to be Valentine Day's greeting cards, romantic videos, etc.
• Do not open emails or messages received on social networks from unknown senders.
• Do not click any links included in email messages, even though they may come from reliable sources. It is better to type the URL directly in the browser. This rule applies to messages received through any mail client, as well as those in Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks or messaging applications, etc. If you do click on any such links, take a close look at the page you arrive at and if you don't recognize it, close your browser.
• Even if the page seems legitimate, but asks you to download something, be suspicious and don't accept the download. If you download and install any type of executable file and you begin to see unusual messages on your computer, you have likely been infected with malware.
• If you make any purchases online, type the address of the store in the browser, rather than going through any links that have been sent to you. Only buy online from sites that have a solid reputation and offer secure transactions, encrypting all information that is entered in the page.
• Do not use shared or public computers, or an unsecured WiFi connection, for making transactions or operations that require you to enter passwords or other personal details.
• Have an effective security solution installed, capable of detecting both known and new malware strains.

Panda Security offers several free tools for scanning computers for malware, like Panda Cloud Antivirus.

More information is available in the PandaLabs Blog.

About PandaLabs
Since 1990, PandaLabs, Panda Security's malware research laboratory, has been working to detect and classify malware in order to protect consumers and companies against new Internet threats. To do so, PandaLabs uses Collective Intelligence, a cloud-based proprietary system that leverages the knowledge gathered from Panda's user community to automatically detect, analyze and classify the more than 74,000 new malware strains that appear every day. This automated malware classification is complemented through the work of an international team with researchers specialized each in a specific type of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware and other attacks) to provide global coverage.

Get more information about PandaLabs and subscribe to its blog news feed at http://www.pandalabs.com. 

SOURCE Panda Security