WoW..when it rains it pours and apparently anyone who was out phishing today, got struck by lighting.  A mere two weeks before the Windows Update site forces Windows XP workstations to upgrade to Serivce Pack 1 and on the same day that they released a significant upgrade to Windows 2003 Server, Microsoft has gone on a rampage.

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday filed 117 civil lawsuits against alleged phishers trying to scam Microsoft customers out of personal information such as credit card numbers.

The lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, seek to identify large-scale scam operations and recover damages from so-called phishing operations. Phishers typically send out spam e-mail, made to look like official e-mail from a real e-commerce company, asking recipients to click on a link and update their personal information. The link takes consumers to a Web site that mimics the look of the real e-commerce company, but collects personal information for ID thieves to use.