HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has warned taxpayers to remain cautious after revealing that it has shut down over 180 web sites following a surge in phishing emails over the past three months.The department urged people receiving a suspicious looking email to visit the HMRC web site to check whether it is a scam, and said that people should not "click on web sites or links contained in suspicious emails, or open attachments".The scale and sophistication of the scams means that even savvy internet users could be fooled, and highlights once again the lengths hackers will go to obtain information, according to Alan Bentley, senior vice president of international sales at security firm Lumension.

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