New Year celebrations have already been marred by cyber-criminals trying to take advantage of the holiday season.

Mutant versions of W32/Dorf-AE, also known as Storm, have stopped using the lure of Santa Claus's wife doing a striptease and are now posing as Happy New Year e-cards.

Sophos warned today that the latest malicious email campaigns offer links to websites containing malware using a wide variety of seasonal subject lines, including:

"Many people will be returning to their desks this morning after a lengthy break for Christmas and New Year to a brimming bundle of unread emails," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

"The danger is that the holiday hangover will make them less careful about which messages they click on."