The American Bankers Association's, (ABA) name is being used in a new phishing e-mail, the association learned yesterday. The e-mail informs recipients that an "unauthorized transaction" has been charged to their account using their bank card. The amount of the transaction is listed, and recipients are asked to click on a link to review the transaction.

The e-mail is fraudulent, and recipients should not click on the link.

While phishing for personal financial information has been a long-standing practice, criminals are increasingly phishing for access to corporate, small- business and governmental accounts, and they are using that access to withdraw large sums of money from them. Clicking on links in such e-mails could enable the fraudsters to download malicious software into victims' computers and steal passwords and other account identifiers.

ABA is working with law enforcement to identify the source of the e-mails and to disrupt them. ABA also is encouraging banks to warn their customers -- especially business customers -- to beware of similar phishing schemes.