Dead giveaways that an email is bogus — or phishing to steal your identity.

Each day, most Internet users are assaulted by "important" emails that require "immediate attention" about some type of banking or e-commerce matter. The email urges you to click a link to go to the company's site to straighten out the problem. The catch is that the link takes you to a site that has been designed to look exactly like the real company's site, but is instead just a front for gathering personal information.

Most financial or commercial crisis messages are bogus, but a few might not be. So how do you sort out the real email from the garbage? These tips from the Anti-Phishing Working Group can keep you from getting hooked as another phishing victim:

    - Be automatically suspicious of any email with urgent requests for personal financial information.
    - Don't use the links in an email, instant message or chat to get to any Web page if you suspect the message might not be authentic or you don't know the sender or user's name.