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The millions of dollars donated by individuals to relief efforts in Southeast Asia have brought criminals and scammers out of the woodwork, US government agencies and private anti-fraud groups warned last week, Internetworld.com reported.

Internetworld quotes Jim Lanford, the co-editor of ScamBusters.org in an online alert, saying, "Within hours of the earthquake and tsunami, scams began appearing online and offline. We're not surprised by these scams. The same thing happened right after 9/11, and after every major natural disaster since then."

Ploys include e-mails purporting to include photos or video of the disaster and its aftermath; such attachments can, in fact, be worm and/or virus payloads, the FBI warned.

Among the ways scammers are using the disaster, said Finnish security firm F-Secure, is to twist the typical "Nigerian" banking scheme with fresh and topical details from the affected countries.

The best advice - don't click on anything in an email. Instead, go directly to the website of one of the aid/relief organizations. Both the BBC and CNN, for example, have lists of such places on their news sites:

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology. Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson's blog: NevilleHobson.com.