Watch out, guys.  This is the real thing!

I received a message today warning about a virus distributed when someone
opens a "postcard" that supposedly was sent by a friend.  I just checked
this out on snopes.com.  The virus is real, and it's destructive.

The subject line varies and does NOT always the word postcard.  Examples
provided by snopes include: "You've received a Hallmark E-Card," "You've
received a postcard from a family member," "Colleague sent you a postcard
from egreetings.com," "School friend sent you an ecard from postcards.org,"
"Birthday e-card," etc.

Many of the malicious messages imitate messages from legitimate sites, but
the link will actually point to servers containing malware.  The messages
may also appear to come from friends and relatives you recognize because the
names have been "harvested."

Snopes recommends (a recommendation that many computer sites say should be
standard) that we *never* click on links contained within e-card
notification e-mails.  Instead, go directly to the web site of the card
company, find the card pickup page within that site, and enter the ID code
that was included in the e-mail.  If the message was a fake, you simply
won't get a card -- and that's much better than getting a computer virus.

Note:  I extracted most of this from snopes, which is the source I rely on
most often for checking out these warnings.  Many/most of the warnings are
false, but this one is correct.  If you want to read about it for yourself,
go to www.snopes.com, and type "postcard virus" into the search box.  For
obvious reasons, I am not simply including the link to the site this time.

MaryL