Eleven banks, angered that thieves are trying to steal their customers' money through fake Web sites that resemble their own portals, have banded together to fight phishing.

The Financial Services Technology Consortium, a financial-industry research group, said Monday that 11 financial institutions--which include Citicorp, J.P. Morgan Chase, Comerica, Visa USA, ABN Amro, KeyBank, Capital One, and University Bank--will define technical and operating requirements for counter-phishing measures, and clarify the infrastructure fit, requirements, and impact of technologies when deployed in concert with customer education, enforcement, and other industry initiatives. The consortium named Gene Neyer, managing executive of its Security Standing committee, to lead the initiative.

Phishing is on the rise, increasing at a 50% rate each month, according to data compiled by the security software firm Tumbleweed Communications Corp. and posted on the Web site of the Anti-Phishing Work Group. The number of unique weekly phishing attacks reached 504 in late July, the latest information that the industry group made available on its site. That's up from 279 from the first week of May. Citibank was the organization with the most targeted phishing attacks in July, at 682, according to the group, adding that more than one-third of the phishing sites are hosted by American providers.

The consortium isn't the only financial services sector group battling phishing. The Banking Information Technology Secretariat, known as BITS--a financial-services industry consortium that addresses electronic banking problem, has formed an anti-phishing working group, which is creating a Phishing Prevention and Investigation Network to provide banks with information and resources to fight phishing and spoofing and report them to law-enforcement authorities, foreign governments, and Internet service providers. The network, which will be announced shortly, will also provide data on trends to help law enforcement build cases and shut down identity-theft operations.