In the last year phishing emails have increased by aproximately 25%. Fraudsters are still targeting the high profile Banks, Financial Institutions and e-commerce sites that they have been targeting in the past, but in many cases they are changing the content of the phishing mails from the "change your password now" type phishing scams that have been prevalent in the past, to more varied and directed messages.

In addition to attacking these well known companies, fraudsters are increasingly targeting smaller European and American financial institutions, and the targets are changing almost daily.

The old rules still apply to these new types of phish; always visit your Banks website by typing the name directly into your browser, or from a bookmark in your browser, rather than following a link in an email.

The e-commerce phish has also become more directed; much of the phish targeting popular online auction sites appears to have been sent from another user rather than from the auction site. For example, many of the phish are fake messages claiming that you bought an item and have not paid, or the other user has raised a dispute against you, or is enquiring about an item for sale. In all these cases if you think that the message may be genuine then if you log directly into the auction site (do not click on the links in the email) you can see if anyone has tried to contact you.

Even though the content of the phishing messages has become more varied, the social engineering techniques used are still the same, and can be avoided by visiting the financial site directly rather than clicking a link in an email.