Small business are being warned to check their online banking accounts, as recent figure released from UK payments association Apacs revealed that the amount lost to online fraud more than doubled in 2008.

Online banking fraud increased to £52m last year, up from £22m in 2007 and total fraud losses on UK credit and debit cards rose by 15% to over £600m.

Fraudsters have been using a device called keylogging - when keystrokes on a computer are tracked to gather passwords and credit card numbers.

"The industry continues to remind customers to ensure that they have their computer's firewall switched on and anti-virus software up to date," said an Apacs spokeswoman.