Spear phishing on the rise.

The Washington Post reports here on the alarming rise of targeted phishing attacks on businesses, especially banks, and other companies which have access to individual's private account information. The canned-spam phishing variety we are all used to, where a phoney email attempts to convince the recipient that a true service provider like Paypal or Ebay needs to verify information, is being replaced by more focussed efforts that may have far reaching effects. How will private citizens defend themselves from identity theft operations conducted against their own banks, credit bureaus and the like?