Valentine’s Day Scams Are a Cybersecurity Problem
Unfortunately, Valentine’s Day is one of the easiest weeks of the year for attackers to exploit trust. People are distracted, emotional, and moving fast. That combination is more powerful than any piece of malware.
Most businesses think Valentine’s Day scams are personal problems. Gift cards. Fake flower deliveries. Strange text messages. Romance scams that belong on consumer warning lists.
From a cybersecurity standpoint, those clicks are often the first step in a business breach.
How Valentine’s Day Scams Actually Work
Attackers do not rely on technical brilliance. They rely on timing and human behavior.
In February, we consistently see a surge in:
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Fake delivery notifications for flowers, chocolates, or jewelry
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SMS messages claiming a missed Valentine’s package
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Spoofed retail emails offering last-minute discounts
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Gift card requests that look like they came from an executive
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Social media or LinkedIn messages that build quick rapport before sharing a link
The goal is rarely just stealing money from the individual. The goal is access.
A personal phone click can expose a Microsoft 365 session token. A reused password can unlock an email account. A compromised inbox can quietly create forwarding rules or hide replies. From there, attackers wait for payroll, invoices, or tax season.
Trust opens the door. Patience does the damage.
Why These Scams Turn Into Business Incidents
Many small businesses still assume that work systems are protected because they have antivirus or MFA enabled. That assumption breaks down fast in real-world scenarios.
Here is what we see during investigations:
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MFA approval spam until a user taps “Approve” just to stop the noise
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Email access that bypasses passwords entirely through session hijacking
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Personal devices used for work email that are never monitored or logged
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Attackers are studying internal email threads before sending a single fraudulent request
By the time money moves or data leaves, the original Valentine’s Day click is long forgotten.
This is how business email compromise starts. Quietly. Patiently. Successfully.
Gift Cards Are the Symptom, Not the Disease
Gift card scams get the headlines because they are obvious and embarrassing. They are also the least expensive outcome.
The more damaging version looks like this:
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An attacker impersonates a vendor after weeks of observation
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An invoice is changed, not invented
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A wire or ACH payment goes to a legitimate-looking account
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Accounting assumes everything is normal until reconciliation fails
At that point, banks and insurers ask uncomfortable questions about email security, monitoring, and response time.
Why February Is Prime Time for Exploitation
February combines three dangerous factors:
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Emotional urgency from holidays and deadlines
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Increased email volume tied to tax season and invoicing
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Fatigue after year-end projects and staffing changes
Attackers track calendars better than most businesses do. Valentine’s Day is simply a convenient entry point.
What Actually Reduces the Risk
Policies and awareness posters are not enough. Real protection comes from visibility and testing.
That means:
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Knowing who approved MFA prompts and when
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Identifying email rules users never created
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Verifying that backups include cloud email data
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Testing how easily an inbox can be used to impersonate leadership
These are measurable controls. They are either in place or they are not.
The Bottom Line
Valentine’s Day scams are not about romance or carelessness. They are about trust, timing, and access.
If a single click on a personal device can lead to financial loss, downtime, or an insurance denial, that is a business risk worth understanding clearly.
At Solve iT, we offer a free threat assessment that shows where trust can be exploited inside your environment. No scare tactics. No guesswork. Just clear answers about how attackers would actually get in.
If you want to sleep better knowing where your real exposure lives, schedule your free threat assessment.