Phishing, a scam to steal valuable information such as credit cards, social security numbers, user IDs and passwords, is a huge problem.

Microsoft on Thursday announced it had filed 117 civil lawsuits against alleged phishers trying to scam Microsoft customers out of personal information such as credit card numbers.

The lawsuits, filed in Washington, identify large-scale scam operations and seek damages from so-called phishing operations. Phishers typically send out spam e-mail, made to look like official e-mail from a real e-commerce company, asking recipients to click on a link and update their personal information. The link takes consumers to a website that mimics the look of the real company, but collects personal information for ID thieves to use.

Phishing, pronounced "fishing", also known as "brand spoofing," an official-looking e-mail is sent to potential victims pretending to be from their ISP, retail store, etc., and that due to internal accounting errors or some other pretext, certain information must be updated to continue the service. A link in the e-mail message directs the user to a Web page that asks for financial information. The page looks genuine, because it is easy to fake a valid Web site.