Hackers use the technique to lure internet users into handing over passwords which can then be used to defraud online banks.
Worse still, some e-mails now contain software which will log your every computer keystroke and send vital details such as your password back to the hackers.
Breakfast's Max Foster has been investigating. He found it surprisingly easy to hack into a friend's computer and read details of bank accounts and passwords.
Internet expert Mark Murtagh, from the security company Websense, answered some of your e-mails
The Anti-Phishing Working Group says there were more than six-and-a-half-thousand new types of phishing email circulating around the internet in October - three times higher than in the summer.
The group, which gathers information from software companies, says the figure is three times higher than during the summer and the technology being used by the hackers is increasingly sophisticated.
Initially the emails were simply made to look as if they came from banks asking customers to renew their log-in details.
Now some emails come loaded with bugs which, when triggered, can monitor where people go on the internet and which passwords they use. The banks are warning people not to open suspicious emails from anyone they don't recognise.
We managed to hack into the PC of our Breakfast guinea-pig, Natasha Gorwitch, with software which is freely-available on the internet.
The spyware took "photographs" of her computer screen, revealing her bank account, bank balance and friends' addresses.
Websense's top tips to prevent attacks on your account:
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