PURCHASE, New York – On the eve of a conference called to combat card fraud, MasterCard International announced that it shut down 1,400 Web sites that promote phishing and other forms of identity theft through its Operation STOP IT program. Phishing is an Internet based fraud scheme in which consumers are fooled into entering their private card information into Web sites that appear to be those of their card issuers but which are really created by the perpetrators of the fraud. The No. 2 card brand said that its effort also shut down 750 sites where illegally obtained credit card information was allegedly sold. MasterCard also said it was able to prevent the compromise of 35,000 card accounts which were at risk on the sites. MasterCard revealed the news about a week before the third annual Global Risk Management Symposium that the card brand hosts in Washington D.C. The Symposium draws about 300 executives from law enforcement, financial services and other related industry interested in stopping credit card fraud.