Digital PhishNet Formed To Reel In Online ScammersDigital PhishNet Formed To Reel In Online Scammers

Technology firms, Internet service providers, banks, e-commerce firms, and law enforcement agencies on Wednesday joined forces to create Digital PhishNet, a ongoing effort to stop phishing scams, the fast-growing form of online identity and funds theft.

Participants, which include Microsoft, America Online, EarthLink, nine of the country's top 10 banks and financial institutions, the FBI and Secret Service, and the Federal Trade Commission, will use the Digital PhishNet operation to report on phishing attacks and help law enforcement track down the criminals behind the scams.

"The key to stopping phishers and bringing them to justice is to identify and target them quickly," said Dan Larkin, the unit chief at the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, in a statement.

"Phishers create and dismantle these phony sites very, very fast, stockpiling credit card numbers, passwords and other personal financial information over the course of just a couple of days. Digital PhishNet facilitates critical data collection between a large number of the targets of these crimes -- those who are on the front lines of the fight against phishing -- and establishes a pipeline directly to law enforcement, in real time, before the phisher has had time to disappear back into the anonymity of cyberspace."

Digital PhishNet isn't new. Its first incarnation was in September as a joint operation between the FBI, state and local law enforcement, and technology companies that, among other things, led to the arrest of more than two dozen people overseas on suspicion of stealing credit cards using Web sites.

The new and improved PhishNet, however, will be a permanent part of the law enforcement picture in the fight against consumer fraud, the companies and organizations promised.

"Phishing is about to become a very dangerous sport," the group said in a statement on its Web site.