Security experts are predicting that the next wave of phishing spam will attempt to exploit the recent financial woes on Wall Street. They say scammers are likely to start soon, using people’s fears of bank failures like that of Washington Mutual by sending official looking spam messages asking for their banking info in order for them to be assured of FDIC protection.

          E-mail scammers like to use global crises and high profile news headlines when baiting consumers,” said Peter Horan, chief executive officer of Goldman, in a press release issued this week to warn consumers of such attacks. “Phishers know how to make use of people’s vulnerabilities during times of stress.”

According to a recent survey, $3.2 billion was lost to phishing scams in 2007, and that figure is expected to keep rising. Banks spend between $100,000 and $500,000 a year to protect their customers from such scams.