Microsoft Corp. Thursday said it was filing 117 lawsuits against unknown Internet site operators it charged were engaged in "phishing" schemes to obtain personal and financial information from unsuspecting consumers.
Often scam artists pose as banks or other legitimate businesses, sending out millions of e-mails or pop-up Web advertisements with requests that the recipient update their account information but instead direct them to fake sites.
The world's biggest software company said it was filing "John Doe" defendant lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Washington state in an attempt to establish connections between worldwide phishers and discover the largest-volume operators.
"We must work together to stop these con artists from misusing the Internet as a tool for fraud," Aaron Kornblum, Internet safety enforcement attorney at Microsoft, said in a statement.
He was joined by officials from the Federal Trade Commission and the National Consumers League who used the lawsuits and Friday's April Fool's Day to encourage consumers to beware of these online schemes.
"Phishing is more than a dirty trick played on unsuspecting consumers -- it's a serious identity theft problem," said Susan Grant, director of the National Consumers League's National Fraud Information Center and Internet Fraud Watch program.
Some scams are getting more and more sophisticated, some by including what looks like a legitimate Internet address link but once clicked on by the user, they are instead directed to a different, fraudulent site asking for personal information.
The officials encouraged consumers to be suspicious of unexpected e-mails seeking personal data, to not click on links in those e-mails, and verify contacts from institutions that claim a person is a victim of identity theft.
