“While the lawsuit is one potential vector in which we can disrupt it, we also think that this type of cyber activity requires a policy-based approach,” a Google official said.
Google has filed a lawsuit accusing a China-based organization of running a massive phishing campaign, impersonating entities like E-ZPass to steal victims’ personal and financial information.
According to CNBC, some cybersecurity researchers have termed the China-based organization the “Smishing Triad.” Google says that the Triad operates largely in China, using a phishing-as-a-service kit named “Lighthouse” to create and distribute fraudulent text messages.
Since it began using Lighthouse, the Smishing Triad has deployed its software to more than 120 countries.
“They were preying on users’ trust in reputable brands such as E-ZPass, the U.S. Postal Service, and even us, as Google,” Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado told CNBC. “The ‘Lighthouse’ enterprise or software creates a bunch of templates in which you create fake websites to pull users’ information.”
Google claims that the Smishing Triad has violated federal statutes including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, originally designed to prosecute members of the Italian-American Mafia. The lawsuit also cites alleged violations of the Lanham Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, and is seeking a court order dismantling the group and the Lighthouse platform.
CNBC notes that the Smishing Triad is believed to have stolen information from between 12.7 million and 115 million credit cards in the United States alone.
“The idea is to prevent its continued proliferation, deter others from doing something similarly, as well as protect both the users and brands that were misused in these websites from future harm,” DeLaine Prado said.
Google says that it has found more than 100 templates generated by Lighthouse that use its branding on sign-in screens to trick victims into entering passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information. The findings of Google’s internal and third-party investigations also indicate that more than 2,500 members of the Smishing Triad were communicating on a public Telegram channel, using it to recruit more members, share advice, and tight Lighthouse features.
DeLaine Prado says that the Smishing Triad is well-organized and has several divisions, including a “data broker” group responsible for supplying lists of potential victims, a “spammer” group that sends text messages, and a “theft” group that uses stolen information to coordinate attacks.
“While the lawsuit is one potential vector in which we can disrupt it, we also think that this type of cyber activity requires a policy-based approach,” DeLaine Prado added.
Sources
Google lawsuit accuses China-based cybercriminals of massive text-message phishing scams
Google sues cybercriminal group behind E-ZPass, USPS text phishing scams
This Is the Platform Google Claims Is Behind a ‘Staggering’ Scam Text Operation
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