The number of websites dedicated to the act of phishing has increased, it has been revealed.

According to data released by the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG), over the course of one month, the number of dedicated sites has increased from 20,871 to 55,643 in April, reports bCentral.

The term phishing refers to the technique of hackers attempting to obtain sensitive user-data through duplicitous means.

"We have seen cases where the phisher will put thousands of URLs on the same domain," said Laura Mather, a senior scientist at MarkMonitor.

"They do this to get around website blocking that Internet Explorer 7.0 and Firefox 2 have deployed to protect consumers from phish sites," she added.

Among the data stolen by phishing fraudsters includes passwords, credit card numbers and usernames and most attacks are initiated via email or through instant messaging software.