With Valentines Day now long over, spammers and phishers have turned to another topic – the economy. As the economic forecast continues to be gloomy here and around the world, recession oriented spam is on the rise. Not too surprising seeing as how spammers regularly exploit headlines in an attempt to get their messages (and more often than not, malware) opened.

The messages contain text and subject lines involving discounts and money-saving opportunities, and contain links to popular search engines that redirect to the spammers’ websites. This type of redirect hides spammer domains, letting them get by spam filters and giving them a longer lifespan.

Phishing emails are also on the rise, most of it in the form of fake account alerts from well-known banks. Phishers know that these days people won’t be surprised to hear from their banking institutions and are taking advantage of that. Phishing emails made to look like responses from well-known sites like Careerbuilder and Monster.com are also becoming more and more widespread as the flow of jobseekers to them increases rapidly.

To protect yourself and your employees, the same rules apply. Don’t click on links in unsolicited emails – in fact don’t even open them at all. Perhaps even more importantly, be ready to help any customers who may have fallen prey to a phishing scam involving your company. If a phisher is using your company, post an alert on your website to warn your customers and file a report with the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a branch of the FBI.