Savvy shoppers know buying online coupons from Groupon can be a great way to get a deal. But now scammers are smarting up to Groupon's potential too ... as a way to transmit a virus.

How the Scam Works:

A new email scam posing as a Groupon offer is infecting victims' computers with a virus.  The emails pretend to come from Groupon and look just like the emails users receive when a friend shares a deal with them.

The fake emails do an excellent job of replicating Groupon's colors, logo and email format. But attached to the message is a file called "gift coupon.zip" which contains a virus designed to infect Windows operating system.

Currently, the fake emails use the poorly spelled subject line "Groupon dicount gifts," but look for that to change as scammers wise up.

As always, stay safe from scams by keeping your virus software up to date and run a scan if you click on something phishy. 

Sample Scam Email: