I'm sure you've seen it many times: family members of former dictators emailing you, requesting your help in getting funds out of the country, promising a cut in return. Of course, only after you provided them with your account details...

This is but one example of criminals that went "phishing".

Simply put, phishing is an attempt by criminals to get hold of your bank details or other personal information in order to steal money or other sensitive information from you.

This usually takes the form of an email that looks like it's coming from a legitimate banking institution or person, but can also take various other forms — including telephone calls.

The most common technique is an email that leads you to a fake website. At first things might seem to be quite legit but sooner or later you will be asked to provide sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and/or banking details.

The best rule by which to combat phishing is "When in doubt, don't". In other words, if there is even the slightest doubt in your mind that the website you're visiting is not legit, do not give any personal information away. In fact, make very sure of the website's security measures and legitimacy before giving any information away.

This is especially true when it comes to banking information. Never ever give your online banking username and password away to anybody, especially over the internet.

When it comes to paying by credit card over the internet, again make sure of the company's legitimacy and security before supplying this information. One way to check whether a site is secure is to look at the URL of the website you're visiting before paying by credit card — if the URL of the page on which you are to type in your credit card details starts with an "https//:", then it is secured (note the "S" which will be absent from the "http" part of an unsecured page).

Another thing to look out for to make sure a page is secure, is the security certificate. In Internet Explorer 7, this can be checked by clicking on the padlock icon found next to the URL (if there is no padlock icon, the site is not secure).

Visit Wikipedia for more information on phishing.