Google filed suit against an alleged Chinese cybercrime network called Outsider Enterprise, which the company says used AI to send 2.5 million scam texts and build 1 million fraudulent domains, defrauding hundreds of thousands of victims.
Google filed a lawsuit Friday against an alleged Chinese cybercrime network it calls Outsider Enterprise, accusing the group of deploying artificial intelligence to impersonate Google and other brands in a large-scale text message fraud scheme that left hundreds of thousands of victims with estimated losses in the millions of dollars.
The company said Outsider Enterprise built an infrastructure of 9,000 fake websites and 1 million fraudulent web domains, and sent 2.5 million scam texts to Android users during a single two-week period.
Android users flagged 55,000 of those spam messages in just those two weeks — a rate of more than two complaints per minute, the company said in a statement.
The scam messages were designed to steal passwords and credit card numbers by impersonating well-known brands, according to Google.
Google said it uses "AI-powered tools to fight AI-powered scams," enabling the company to detect fraudulent activity and alert users to suspicious calls and text messages. That system has led to the interception of more than 10 billion scam messages per month, the company said.
The lawsuit seeks to dismantle the operational infrastructure behind the alleged network. Google said it has been working with AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon to block the scam messages and is coordinating with the FBI, which is taking unspecified law enforcement actions. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case underscores a growing dynamic in the cybersecurity landscape: criminal networks deploying AI tools to generate and distribute fraudulent content at scale, while technology companies increasingly rely on AI-driven defenses to detect and neutralize those same campaigns.
Outsider Enterprise is among the more recent examples of threat actors using AI to accelerate the volume and apparent legitimacy of phishing and smishing operations — a trend that security researchers have been tracking with increasing urgency over the past two years.
Google's lawsuit targets the group's technical infrastructure directly, a legal strategy the company has employed previously to disrupt cybercrime operations by severing their ability to register domains, host fake sites, and communicate with victims.
The outcome of the case and the scope of the FBI's parallel law enforcement actions are expected to become clearer in the coming weeks, as court filings and federal disclosures provide additional detail on the alleged network's operators and reach.
Jay Goldberg is a staff writer at TechEchelon covering technology, markets, and policy. He files the breaking news and deal coverage that move the publication's core desks.
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