The word on the wards is that online banking is on the whole fairly safe; but it pays to be vigilant.

The latest figures we've found show that losses from online banking fraud have grown sharply in recent months. This is due to a rise of nearly 1,500% in the number of bogus bank websites used by criminals to empty people's accounts.

Online banking fraud losses came to a whopping £22.5m in the first 6 months of this year alone. That is a rise of 55% on the £14.5m of losses in the same period last year!

Many of these losses involved "phishing" scams. This is where fraudsters send out thousands of emails stating they had come from an individual's bank and then try to get them to disclose important security information. These emails often include a link to a fake version of a bank website.

For instance, i recently got an email from an American finance company saying my account details had lapsed and i needed to provide them with personal information. Oh really? Strange considering i have never heard of them, let alone had an account with them!!

The number of bogus websites appearing has leapt 1,471% in a year - from 312 in the first six months of last year to 5,059 this time. So as you can see, it's proving a popular way of criminals trying to steal your hard earned money!

"So what can we do to stop this??? we hear you ask. "Many things!?? we reply. You can take Apacs' advice and install the latest anti-virus software and a personal firewall.

Other than that, if you get an email you think is from you bank asking for personal account details, use some common sense by ringing them to double check! Also, you should never click on a link contained in an email you think is suspicious! You should type the homepage URL of your bank into your web browser instead and go dierctly to that site.

Its always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your money!