"Phishing" is the term used when spammers, pretending to be your bank or credit card company or mortgage lender, ask everyone on a spamming email list to "update" their personal information.

An example of a phishing expedition email is copied below. Please note that the link given SAYS that it will take you to a sub-page of the USBANK.COM web site. (It does not.) The linked page had already been removed when this particular email arrived but, no doubt, it looked like a US BANK site and used their logo.

The real USBANK.com web site explains that it will never ask for sensitive information like passwords, social security numbers or even account numbers by email. Don't rise to this bait!

Internet file-sharing sites, like Kazaa, are known to have the MyDoom virus posted for download under misleading headings, including "Winamp5" and "ICQ2004-final."

Newer worms are using simple and apparently innocent subject lines for email delivery, including "hi", "Hello", "Error" or "Server Report". Messages in the body include: "Mail transaction failed. Partial message is available" and "The message cannot be represented in 7-bit ASCII encoding and has been sent as a binary attachment." Many times the .exe extensions which were the
give-away that this could be a virus are masked by ".zip" and even ".txt" extensions.

In some cases, the worms are even able to replicate onto your computer through the Preview screen of Miscrosoft's Outlook mail program - so you can be infected without even opening the suspicious email.

Up-to-date virus protection is more critical than ever.