Right around this time of the month, most girls – like me – start daydreaming about candlelight dinners, beautiful roses, chocolate hearts and sweet cards that typically go along with Valentine’s Day. However, have you ever thought about possible scams that could turn this romantic day into a nightmare?

According to ESET researchers in Latin America, cyber criminals are targeting hopeless romantics in order to penetrate their computers and implant malicious codes.

“Malware authors, always eager to exploit their victims' susceptibility and curiosity, see great potential for ‘romantic’ hyperlinks that lead, allegedly, to greetings cards, poems, songs or videos,” according to the company.

Here are some things to be aware of to avoid getting your heart err computer broken:

1. Malware in social networks

Although social networks are great places to share your feelings, thoughts, desires and dreams, these places are prime targets for cyber criminals wishing to gain access to your private information. Do your best to steer clear of posts on sites that relate to the Valentine theme, in particular messages that just seem too good to be true that are filled with amazing promotions or free gifts if you wish to avoid potential threats to your computer’s security.

2. BlackHat SEO

Search engines are great for finding information on a certain topic quickly, but this is also how attackers easily drive users to malicious sites. Through leveraging BlackHat SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, these technology connoisseurs find ways to make their malicious websites rise to the top in Google (News - Alert) and other major sites that deal with keywords related to Valentine's Day.

3. Inauthentic Greeting Cards

Valentine's Day online greetings card are a perfect way to show someone you care at either a free or very cheap price point. And cybercriminals are counting on eager, budget-constrained individuals to search for the ideal card so they send out fake cards and fake Web links that users think are leading them to their chosen cards, when in actuality they are on a one way train to malicious code land.

4. Privacy and stolen information

Although malware is a huge threat to remain in the know about, it isn’t the only adverse attack that can ruin this happy day.  The blog revealed, “For reasons related to Valentine's Day, there are many applications associated with social networks (especially Facebook (News - Alert)) that take advantage of their victims’ romantic susceptibilities to trick them into giving them access to far too much information. As with any applications, either on Facebook or on your smartphone, be careful and check what permissions new applications are demanding before accepting.”

5. “Russian Bride”

A day of the year that is mostly dedicated to couples in love, Valentine's Day can be a pretty depressing day that many single people wish they could just sleep through. To take advantage of this loneliness, cyber criminals frequently make sure that cyber attacks occur through a large amount of emails that have been designed to get one over on those without a + 1.

For example, a wide array of Russian websites that focus on promoting sexual content are known for sending out emails  that appeal to the ordinary man looking for a lonely woman. It’s important to do your research and make sure it’s the real thing before you travel to these sites.

I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of Valentine’s Day because if you truly love someone, you should be showing it each and every day. And with these new scams to worry about, you can guarantee I won’t be checking out any V-day websites any time soon. What about you?