Watch out for upcoming Valentine's Day malware

Secret crushes. Fancy chocolates. Tawdry lingerie. Who doesn't love the temptations of Valentine's Day?

Of course, no one loves that day more than hackers, who prey on your excitement over forbidden love and the promise of romance, using it as a convenient excuse to inject copious amounts of malware into your computer.

Symantec is offering both a warning and a history lesson on how the promise of love has been used as a sneaky and underhanded instrument by the malware creators of the world for years... and they're likely to keep doing so.

Probably the most noteworthy love-oriented malware attack is the "ILOVEYOU" (aka "LOVELETTER") attack, which began making the rounds via email in May 2000. Back then, computer users weren't accustomed to the crush of subject lines like "Somebody Loves You" and "Love at first sight," and the result was that millions of users double-clicked the ValentineCard.exe application each message contained as an attachment. The damage from the virus was incredible, as it replicated incredibly quickly via email, destroying thousands of files on each machine it infected along the way. About 10 percent of all Internet-connected PCs were affected, with some figures placing the total damage at $5.5 billion.

Since then, business has been booming in the love+virus industry. The promise of naked celebrity photos (remember the ubiquitous promise of nude Anna Kournikova pics?) has been another big hit for malware creators, and numerous email viruses continue to rely on "You've got a secret admirer!"-type subject lines to trick you into opening them.

While you'd think that few people are being suckered by these come-ons any more, Valentine's Day-related attacks are still having an impact. Last year the Storm virus hit hard on V-Day for the second year running. Chances are good it will return for a third engagement starting next week.

So that's a long way of urging you to be careful out there over the next few days and weeks: More than relying on technological savvy, the best malware creators prey on your insecurities and desires, but even on Valentine's Day try to remember that the secret crushes of the world are almost always too good to be true.