Microsoft, eBay, PayPal and Visa are among the initial participants in the Phish Report Network, an anti-phishing aggregating service operated by WholeSecurity.
The network allows companies being victimized by phishing attacks to securely report fraudulent Web sites to a central database operated by WholeSecurity. Other companies subscribing to the Phish Report Network can then access the database or receive real-time notifications of known phishing sites.
Phishing is an act of fraud that involves an attempt by scam artists to steal the identities of Internet users by sending out e-mails or links to Web pages mimicking popular Web sites. The Anti-Phishing Working Group, a pan-industrial and law enforcement association focused on eliminating fraud resulting from phishing and e-mail spoofing, recently reported a 24% month-to-month growth rate in phishing attacks from August to December 2004.
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