November and December are two of the big shopping months - and with it comes an ever increasing amoung of phishing attacks. News.com reports that in November the phishing attacks increased by 29 percent. A total of 51 brands were hijacked under different circumstances, different pretexts, but all of them managed to attract victims and collect personal information, many times without the victims even suspecting.

One of the problems with phishing is its latency. It may take months before a victim realizes that his or her identity is stolen, credit card used, or bank account compromised. Many times the reason is unknown, many times the victim remembers that suspicious-looking email from their bank that asked them for their password. This latency makes detection very hard, prevention after the incident is hard. What is left - prevention before the incident - and this requires user education, stricter penalties for phishers, and better use of technology to fight this problem.