Your e-mail account is a goldmine. Technology companies push hard to keep your data secure, but there are plenty of scumbags out there who always seem to find a new way to gain an edge over the guys in white hats. Phishers, in particular, are eager to find new ways to profit from your identity and information, and they're getting some new tricks.

Phishing scam activity was quiet at the beginning of this year, according to a report in USA Today, but these attacks surged 200% from May through September, says the X-Force team at IBM (NYSE: IBM). Webmail, social media and gaming accounts are their primary targets. E-mail access, in particular, is highly sought after, since they can be use to push out spam ... while bypassing filters.

These "virgin" e-mail accounts command top dollar: a digital criminal can pick up as much as $2 for a clean account from Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Live, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Gmail, Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) YahooMail or AOL (NYSE: TWX). This is more than twice the amount typically paid for a stolen credit card account, according to Fred Rica, principal in the security practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Many webmail users actually do half the criminals' job for them, with 33% using just one password online and 48% using only a handful.

Yahoo! Inc.'s (NASDAQ: YHOO) purchase of corporate email provider Zimbra this week was one of the more exciting pieces of news I've seen from the Sunnyvale, Ca. company in a few years. Yahoo!'s recent spending spree also includes BlueLithium, a maker of online behavioral marketing services. So, with two large acquisitions, is Yahoo! on the way back to stardom as it tries to more fully complete with Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)? Perhaps. in any case, the Zimbra buy was very wise for Yahoo!, and by all accounts, the price was a bargain compared to the business potential it could bring Yahoo!

The Zimbra buy will beef up Yahoo!'s email services, of course. One of the bright lights these days for Yahoo! is the immense success it has had with gaining and retaining web-based email customers. More people use Yahoo! email than any other email service on the planet, and it handily beats Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Hotmail as well as Google's Gmail. I still find Gmail to best web-based email out there, but it was not there first, having come more than seven years after Yahoo!'s mail arrived on the scene. As usual, first-movers get all the glory -- and users -- which explains why Yahoo! is still at the top (by far) and why online auctioneers have failed to catch up with global online auction leader eBay, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Yahoo! has wisely spent $350 million here, as it will inherit a very robust base of business email clients that it can either fold into a new global email system that is used by customers and businesses, or it can get innovative in the business space and fight with Microsoft's Exchange email system for businesses as well as fight off Google's slow-but-sure entrance into the same market. After all, email has been Yahoo!'s greatest success, but whether it remains at the top or allows the competition to eat its lunch won't be known for a while.