The FBI is seeing a proliferation of web sites soliciting forcharitable donations to aid the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Inearly September, the bureau warned that anyone wishing tocontribute to recovery efforts online should attempt to verify thelegitimacy of non-profit organizations, as well as their non-profitstatus. To ensure that contributions to non-profit organizationsare used for intended purposes, the FBI suggests going directly torecognized charities and aid organizations' web sites, as opposedto following links from other sites.

Several variations of the scam currently are in circulation,according to the bureau. By mid-September, approximately 2,300Katrina-related sites could be found on the Internet. Manypurported to be connected with the Red Cross.

Computer users also should beware of e-mail claiming to showpictures of the disaster areas in attached files, as the files maycontain viruses. Only attachments from known senders should beopened, the FBI reiterated.