Industry Team Up to Launch Digital PhishNet

Representatives from a number of industries and international law enforcement agencies today announced the establishment of Digital PhishNet, a collaborative enforcement operation that unites industry leaders in technology, banking, financial services and online auctioneering with law enforcement to tackle "phishing," a destructive and growing form of online identity theft.

Digital PhishNet (www.digitalphishnet.org) establishes a single, unified line of communication between industry and law enforcement, so critical data to fight phishing can be compiled and provided to law enforcement in real time. Phishing is the particularly harmful and deceptive emerging online threat that involves directing consumers to phony Web sites, usually through forged or "spoofed" spam e-mails, to input personal financial information such as credit card numbers and passcodes.

Digital PhishNet brings together industry leaders from nine of the top 10 U.S. banks and financial services providers, four of the top five Internet service providers and five digital commerce and technology companies, and works with top federal and international law enforcement agencies.

"The key to stopping phishers and bringing them to justice is to identify and target them quickly," said Dan Larkin, unit chief at the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

"Phishers create and dismantle these phony sites very, very fast, stockpiling credit card numbers, passcodes and other personal financial information over the course of just a couple of days, in order to avoid detection."

The law enforcement supporters of Digital PhishNet have formed an alliance with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that will use the aggregated data, along with various tools and strategies, to identify and arrest those suspected of perpetrating phishing scams.

"Phishers are the street muggers of the digital age, using computers instead of weapons to steal financial information and identities from innocent people," said Tatiana Platt, chief trust officer and senior vice president for Integrity Assurance for America Online.