The federal government and ISP EarthLink warned Monday of a surge in unsolicited ("spam") e-mail and scam Web sites that are designed to steal the identity of unsuspecting Internet users.

The Atlanta, Ga., ISP has seen a spike since the beginning of the year in e-mail linked to so-called "phisher" Web site scams, which use spam to lure victims to Web sites that are designed to look like legitimate retail or corporate sites, according to company spokeswoman Carla Shaw.

Victims are often told they need to update personal account information with a company. Once at the scam site, victims are asked to "re-enter" sensitive information such as their Social Security number, account password or even credit card numbers into a form provided on the site. That information is captured by the scam Web site's operators and used to perpetrate identity theft, EarthLink said.

In a joint statement, the FBI said that it has seen a "steady increase" in complaints to its Internet Fraud Complaint Center about the phony Web sites.

Retailers, online auction sites and ISPs are frequent targets of the scam artists, the FBI said.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that it was working closely with EarthLink as well as law enforcement to warn consumers about the scams.

Identity theft has been the number one consumer complaint reported to the agency for the last three years, the agency said.

EarthLink asked the federal agencies to join it in issuing a warning to raise the profile of the problem, Shaw said.

"We want to make consumers aware of the problem and empower them with the knowledge that these types of scams are increasing and that they can protect themselves by not responding to suspicious e-mails," she said.

The warnings come as a new report from research group Gartner shows a dramatic increase in incidents of identity theft in the past 12 months.

"Underreporting of Identity Theft Rewards the Thieves" surveyed 2,445 U.S. households in May 2003. The study found that reported incidents of identity theft increased 79% in the past year, from 1.9% of respondents to 3.4%, Gartner said.

Broadened to include all U.S. consumers, the survey's results mean that 7 million U.S. adults were victims of identity theft in the last 12 months, Gartner said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.