Catching Big Phishers

Enterprise Windows reported Microsoft is filing 117 lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle against John Doe defendents alleged to run large-scale phishing operations.

The targets are people suspected of using MSN and Hotmail in ruses to trick consumers into handing over financial information....

“Phishing is more than a dirty trick played on unsuspecting consumers -- it's a serious identity theft problem," said Lydia Parnes, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "In little over a year, it's become one of the top scams reported to our National Fraud Information Center and Internet Fraud Watch program."

On a related subject Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) has introduced a federal anti-phishing bill that would result in considerable fines and jail terms for any individuals who create fraudulent Web sites and send misleading e-mail with the intention to gain financial information from unsuspecting users.

The Anti-Phishing Act of 2005 [S. 472] "targets a serious threat to the security of the Internet," Leahy says in a statement. [A similar bill is in the House H. R. 1099]

The legislation also includes penalties for "pharming," which uses browsers and the Internet's addressing system to direct people to phony sites.

The introduction of the bill comes the same week that the Anti-Phishing Working Group issued a major -- and alarming -- report about current phishing activity.