Google Sues Chinese Cybercriminals Behind Massive Phishing Campaigns

In Brief

• Google has filed a lawsuit against a Chinese cybercrime group called “Lighthouse” for impersonating its brand and conducting large-scale phishing scams.
• The group allegedly used Google-themed websites and text-message campaigns to steal sensitive financial and personal data from victims worldwide..
• Google is also supporting new bipartisan legislation in the U.S. aimed at improving protections against future cyberattacks.

Shedrach Kongvong 2025-11-15

Google has sued a major Chinese Cybercrime group for using its name to scam victims. The group known as Smishing Triad has carried out massive phishing attacks and is said to be behind incidents of major companies like E-Z Pass in which it steals people’s financial information.

The company announced the lawsuit in a blog post, saying it seeks to stop the group’s global scam activities that have stolen millions of dollars from victims.

Google says it is also endorsing pivotal bipartisan bills in the U.S. Congress to protect people from future attacks.

Fighting Back Against Phishing Crimes

“Lighthouse” has been in existence as a phishing-as-a-service kit for some time now, and the group has used successfully to generate and deploy massive “smishing” (SMS phishing) attacks.

In smishing attacks, the attackers send a text that prompts the victim to tap a link and share sensitive information like email credentials, banking information and more.

Google is getting involved because the bad actors have used its name and trademark on several websites to launch attacks on unsuspecting victims.

So far, at least 107 website templates with Google’s branding on sign-in screens for scamming users have been uncovered. “Lighthouse” has scammed over 1 million victims in more than 120 countries, stealing 12.7 million to 115 million credit cards in the U.S. alone.