The FBI and Google have announced the takedown of Outsider Enterprise, a large phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform that caused billions of dollars in losses.
Operating out of China and coordinated through Telegram, the network distributed phishing kits that allowed threat actors to impersonate known brands in campaigns carried out over SMS messages.
According to Google, hundreds of thousands of people fell victim to attacks carried out by threat actors associated with Outsider Enterprise.
More than 2.5 million messages containing links to websites generated through the platform were sent to Android users over a two-week window in May.
The internet giant says it has identified 9,000 fake websites and more than 1 million URLs associated with Outsider Enterprise.
According to the FBI, the Chinese PhaaS platform has been active since 2023, targeting individuals in the US and at least 54 other countries.
Over the past three years, the phishing platform was used to steal approximately 3.8 million credit cards, causing an estimated $1.9 billion in losses, the Bureau says.
The takedown action, part of the FBI’s Operation Riptide, an effort to disrupt cybercriminal networks, led to the seizure of domains linked to Outsider Enterprise’s administrative servers and of a Shopify e-commerce storefront and account employed for phishing kit testing.
The investigators also seized approximately $100,000 in cryptocurrency assets and used an Outsider Telegram bot to gather intelligence on the platform’s customers.
Additionally, the FBI and its partners took down thousands of phishing domains hosted by US providers and rerouted them through an FBI splash page.
Google on Friday announced it has filed a lawsuit to dismantle Outsider Enterprise infrastructure in coordination with the FBI. The company is also working with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to block the phishing text messages.
According to the internet giant, protections against cyber-enabled fraud should be permanent. Thus, it is advocating for “seven bipartisan bills to fight back against scams, including those created with AI”.
These include the National Strategy for Combating Scams Act, the Strategic Task Force on Scam Prevention Act, the STOP Scams Against Seniors Act, the AI Plan Act, the Stopping Cross-border Attacks and Manipulation (SCAM) Act, the Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness and Education Campaign Act, and the Stop Schemes, Cyber Fraud, Abuse, Manipulation, and Swindles (SCAMS) Act.
“By combining powerful security defenses with aggressive legal action, we’re fighting against scammers and working to build a safer internet for everyone,” Google notes.
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