Companies and consumers have been warned to be aware of the dangers of emailed Valentine’s in the run-up to romantic celebrations on February 14th.

Millions of emails are expected to be sent in the run-up to St Valentine’s Day, and some of them will include malicious viral attachments or link to dangerous websites.

IT security firm Sophos has reported that virus writers are increasingly using psychological temptations such as love, money and lust to encourage innocent users to activate malicious code.

The latest example seen by Sophos experts is a romantically-themed email which directs unsuspecting computer users to a website containing romantic images, alongside a variant of the Dorf malware (W32/Dorf-AW, also known as Storm).

Emails with subject lines such as “I Like You”, “Powerful Love”, “Tower of Love”, “You Stay In My Heart”, “Hugs And Kisses”, “Val-ANT-ines”, “Just You”, “What is Love?”, “The Love Train”, “My Heart”, “You’re My Valentine”, “Just You”, “My Love For You”, “Love Rose”, “World Love”, “You Stay In My Heart”, “A Rose To Say…”, “I Love You”, “Valentine Friends”, “Love Rose”, “Thinking Of U All Day”, “Valentine Invitation”, and “Happy Valentine’s Day!” actually link to a website designed to surreptiously infect and take control over PCs. Once a personal computer has been compromised it can be used to send further spam, launch denial-of-service attacks, or commit identity theft.

“The technique of using the disguise of love isn’t a new one - in 2000 the Love Bug virus posed as a romantic loveletter and millions of users around the world were hit. But every year we see more attempts by hackers to make what should be a day of romance a misery,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. “All companies and organisations should teach employees safe computing practice and to be suspicious of any unsolicited emails. Clicking on an unknown file or weblink is asking for trouble.”

“As romance blossoms in the office it may be all too easy for your users to let their guard slip and leave themselves vulnerable to attack,” continued Cluley. “It may be a lot safer to receive your Valentine message through the regular post.”