Viva Vogue Email Protection Tips

VivaVogue.com's top concern is protecting you, our valued customer. This extends to providing you with valuable information about how you can protect yourself from e-card email scams that are affecting the industry. As you likely have heard, scam emails are being sent that portray themselves as correspondence from legitimate companies. Unfortunately, these emails contain malicious links, which can compromise vulnerable computers when the links are clicked on.

There are very simple methods you can employ to protect yourself from scam emails. Your first option is to consciously refuse to click on links within an email if you suspect the e-card you have received is a scam. Instead, you can go directly to the official website of the e-card provider, www.vivavogue.com, for example, to pick up an e-card securely. This removes the need to click on an email that might be questionable.

To help ensure your safety, we have designed our e-card notification email easy to detect so you can distinguish our legitimate cards from the scams on the Internet. Please read on for information about how to tell our cards apart from other emails sent to your inbox.

Our Format
Legitimate e-card notification emails from Viva Vogue have all of the following attributes:

• The "from" line will always display "E-Card from VivaVogue.com" as the display name and ecards@vivavogue.com as the email address. Make sure to check both the display name and email address. It should appear as the following: "E-Card from VivaVogue.com" ecards@vivavogue.com
• The subject line will always include the name of the person who sent the e-card. Be certain that you recognize the individual in the subject line before clicking on any links. It should appear as: "Jayne Doe has sent you an e-card from VivaVogue.com" ("Jayne Doe" is the person who sent you the e-card).
• The message of the email will include the name and email address of the sender. Make sure you recognize the person before you click on any links. We have also made it easy to find the e-card pickup area of the Viva Vogue site so you can safely view greetings without clicking on any email links. To view your e-card, just go to www.vivavogue.com and look in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.

More On Phishing Attacks
A number of websites have been affected by the rash of phishing attempts. While malicious e-card subject lines are generally quite generic, such as "You've received an e-card from an old friend," some recent attacks have included brand-specific messaging such as "Julie sent you a postcard from VivaVogue.com." Also, the pickup link within a malicious e-card email is most likely always an IP address, such as 134.0.0.2, which is much different than the standard pickup link from a legitimate e-card sender that starts off with the host name (e.g., VivaVogue.com) and not a series of numbers. It has also been observed that some fake emails have the link showing the host name, but the link sends a recipient to an IP address instead of the legitimate site. To test if there is an IP address associated with the link, hover over it with your cursor. If you see a URL when hovering over the link that has a series of numbers, such as http://67.648.666.13, it is not a legitimate link and you should NOT click on it.

What To Do If You Receive An Illegitimate Card
If you suspect you have received an illegitimate card with a Viva Vogue tag there are certain things you should and should not do. They include:

• Do not click on any links. This is the first and foremost thing to avoid doing if there is any question about an e-card's legitimacy.
• Type VivaVogue.com into your browser. To test the legitimacy of an e-card, physically type in our website address into your browser and then go to the e-card pickup link on the right-hand, upper corner of our homepage.

Examples of Legitimate Viva Vogue Emails:

Subject Line: (Your Friends First Name) has sent you an eCard from VivaVouge.com. Reminders for pickup will have the following subject lines:

• 1.Reminder: Your e-card from (Your Friends First Name) is waiting for you at www.VivaVogue.com.
• 1.Don't forget: Your e-card from (Your Friends First Name) is waiting for you at www.VivaVogue.com

"From" Line: (Your Friends First Name) has sent you an E-Card from VivaVogue.com ecards@vivavogue.com

Body Message: In a legitimate card, the sender's name and email address is always found in the body of the email. If you do not recognize the person, do not click through on any links.

Outgoing Links: A legitimate eCard pickup link will always include www.VivaVogue.com as the starting point of the URL. We will never send you an EXE file. If the email you have received contains a clickable URL that is an EXE file, DO NOT CLICK ON IT!

Protecting Yourself In The Future If you think you have received a fake eCard claiming to be from VivaVogue.com, please send your email to security@vivavogue.com by forwarding it to us. We are not able to responds, but rest assured your submission will help us in our battle against scams and phishing over the Internet.

You are also urged to file a complaint with the Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI to make this agency aware of any new scams.

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