Don't fall for poisoned e-Valentines this holiday

With Valentine's Day around the corner, we can expect a virtual deluge ofelectronic valentines, the modern equivalent of "I love you enough to send you stuff that doesn't cost me time or money." Hopefully, you're aware of just how frequently such cards contain viruses or other malware. My usual suggestion is to never open an electronic greeting card.

Now, however, a program by the anti-virus program developer AVG, Slam the Online Holiday Scam, offers a convenient way to check those cards for poison before opening them. You can copy the link to the card that is contained within in the email announcing the card and paste it into AVG's LinkScanner Drop Zone. The LinkScanner will put the link under the microscope and tell you if it leads to evil.