You might say that many of the world’s most powerful companies have just about had it with the ongoing issues behind Phishing. Unlike the sport often done in the world’s lakes and streams, this sort of phishing is not something to include the kids along in. To be honest, it is a real problem and I hope that it will be brought to a major slowdown soon.

To make it easier to identify and react to new scam Web sites, Microsoft Corp., eBay Inc. and Visa International Inc. are launching a program to share information about online identity theft scams known as “phishing attacks,” they said Monday.

The companies will use the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week to unveil the Phish Report Network, an antiphishing service that aggregates reports of phishing attacks and issues alerts about new phishing Web sites to subscribers. The service is being sponsored by end-point security company WholeSecurity Inc., according to a statement from WholeSecurity.

Phishing scams are online crimes that use spam to direct Internet users to Web sites designed to look like legitimate e-commerce sites, but which are controlled by thieves. Users are asked to provide sensitive information such as passwords, bank account information or credit card numbers, often under the guise of updating an account.

Reports of online identity theft scams have grown steadily for more than a year. In December, more than 1,700 active phishing Web sites were reported, a 10 percent jump from the previous month, according to data released by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG).

More than 9,000 unique e-mail messages linked to phishing scams were identified by the APWG in December, an increase of 6 percent from the month before, and a 38 percent increase over the number reported in July, according to an APWG report.

The scams are notoriously hard to shut down because those behind them often use compromised computers scattered around the globe to host phishing Web sites and to distribute the spam messages advertising the sites. The average duration of a phishing Web site was almost six days in December, with some sites operating for as long as 30 days before being shut down, the APWG reported.