A new kind of fraudulent e-mail known as 'phishing' emerged as a trend in online fraud in 2003, and it skyrocketed during the holiday shopping.

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Anti-phishing.org released a report last week that said that phishing e-mails increased 400 percent in December.

A phishing attack starts with spoofed e-mail that appears to be from a reputable organization, such as Best Buy or credit-card companies. The mails urge customers to click on a link that delivers a Web page that looks like it's from that group. On that page, consumers are asked to enter personal information such as credit card or Social Security numbers that can be used for things like identity theft.

Tumbleweed Communications, which analyzed data from Anti-phishing.org, said 5 percent of people responded to the e-mails.

Companies who had their names used in recent outbreaks include Visa, America Online and eBay.

Often, the page that the potential victim is brought to will have a clue that it's not legitimate, such as a URL that does not match the company's normal Web address. However, a new exploit of Internet Explorer can allow "spoofed" URLs to appear.