Email fraud and phishing attacks rocketed by more than 50 per cent in January, with around six new attacks sent to millions of consumers each day.

Phishing, where cyber-criminals try to tempt unwary surfers to submit credit card and other personal data to bogus websites imitating reputable companies, is proving a major menace to e-commerce.

According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group there were a total of 176 unique phishing attacks in January, a 52 per cent increase over the number of attacks reported in December.

Successful scams that fool recipients into downloading keyloggers and other Trojan programs represent an emerging threat and are growing in sophistication, the group warned.

The company most targeted by attacks in January was, once again, eBay, while the most targeted industry sector was identified as financial services.

Some eight per cent of the reported phishing attacks took advantage of the recently patched Microsoft Internet Explorer browser vulnerability that allows website addresses to be disguised.

"Phishing attacks are quickly increasing both in number and in sophistication, and pose a serious threat to consumers and the companies they do business with online," said Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, in a statement.

"The spam epidemic has evolved from a nuisance to a real security threat with this shift to financial crime and identity theft."

More information from the Anti-Phishing Working Group can be found here.