Google sues Chinese hacker group which allegedly stole $1 billion from a million victims

Date:
Thu, 13 Nov 2025 16:04:00 +0000

Description:
The Lighthouse Enterprise is a major phishing-as-a-service operation from
China used to build thousands of fake sites.

FULL STORY

Google has sued the Lighthouse Enterprise - a major Chinese global fraud operation which facilitated the theft of millions of credit cards and
hundreds of millions of dollars.

In a federal lawsuit recently filed in the Southern District of New York, Google revealed plans to sue a group of foreign criminals for running a
massive phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) operation.

According to the complaint, the group created and sold a phishing kit called Lighthouse, which allowed even newbie criminals to build fake websites that mimicked trusted institutions. The kit, advertised through Telegram and YouTube, offered hundreds of pre-made templates and tools to launch
large-scale smishing and e-commerce scams, and allowed users to create fake websites spoofing government agencies, financial corporations and - among others - Google.

Unknown number of "Does"

Google alleges that over a span of 20 days, the Lighthouse platform was used
to create 200,000 fake websites, which targeted more than a million victims
in 121 countries.

Citing researchers, Google estimates between 12.7 million and 115 million credit cards in the US alone may have been compromised through Lighthouse-powered attacks.

The exact number of people running the operation is unknown. In the lawsuit, the individuals are labeled as Doe 1-25, although Google acknowledged that
the actual number of people is probably a lot bigger.

In some cases, the crooks would create fake USPS package delivery texts, or would alert victims of pending toll payments. Sometimes, they would build counterfeit online stores that stole users payment data and often used stolen information to load victims credit cards into digital wallets to make unauthorized payments.

Google claims Lighthouse operators misused Google logos and trademarks, ran
ads through Google Ads, and even uploaded tutorials to YouTube showing how to carry out the scams.

The hackers damaged Googles reputation, violated its terms of service, and forced it to spend hundreds of hours investigating and shutting down
fraudulent accounts, the company concluded.

This is not the first time Google has sued Chinese nationals for cybercrime, but most of the time the lawsuits come to nothing, since China rarely extradites its citizens to the US, especially when it comes to cybercrime.

Via The Register

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/google-sues-chinese-hacker-group-which- allegedly-stole-usd1-billion-from-a-million-victims

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