Fraud: financial crisis brings renewed vigour

Forget Viagra, penis enlargement and the more routine pump and dump schemes, the big scheme for internet fraudsters is to return to phishing.

Currently, Abbey, the UK bank owned by Santander, is the biggest target and our own offices are being subjected to thunderous levels of spam inviting us to visit Abbey's website to check the balances in our accounts.

Of course, the link is to a fake website but with regulators busy trying to prevent their industries disappearing no one is paying attention to minor problems so no warnings are being issued.