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Original post on Sophos. Author – Graham Cluley
We’re having an uncharacteristically sunny June day here in Britain, making it feel all the more incongruous to see Christmas cards are being sent out via email.
But you should be careful, because these aren’t just badly timed emails wishing you season’s greetings – these emails have a malicious payload designed to infect your Windows computers.
Here’s a typical example of the type of message that has been intercepted by SophosLabs:
Subject: You have received a Christmas Greeting Card!
Message body:
You have just received a Christmas greeting card!
To see your custom card and who sent it, please click the attachmentAttached file: Christmas Card.zip
Although the email claims to come from 123greetings, a legitimate and well-known ecard website, the reality is that the bad guys have forged the headers in this email in an attempt to trick you into clicking on the attachment.
The danger is, of course, that you may be bemused by the notion of receiving a Christmas card in June and click on the attachment out of curiousity. That would be a big mistake, however, as it contains the Mal/CryptBox-A Trojan horse.
So you should have trusted your instincts. There’s always going to be something odd about a Christmas card arriving in June – and like any other unsolicited attachment it should be approached with caution.
Make sure that your anti-virus software and email protection is in place, and make sure you’ve had a good healthy helping of common sense next time you receive an out-of-season greeting.
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Santa Claus is a character that always crosses our minds when we think of Christmas. But everyone knows he is a fictional character who is used for adding joy by giving gifts. no one so far has really tracked him on Christmas. But today this is possible at NORADSanta.org which enables users to track the jolly old tart through Google Earth, Google Maps or even YouTube. NORAD which stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command will use a radar system called the North Warning System monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. According to Google, users can leave old Santa a voice message on his Google Voice Number and also watch him on the “Santa Cam” video. To pacify the anxious users who wait for Santa, a number of fun Christmas games are loaded for them to play and pass time. Twitter, Facebook and Youtube account holders can get updates on their page from NORAD… The plugin can be downloaded by Windows users for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Flock browsers. Mac users can do so, by downloading the plugin for Safari and Firefox.
