Google filed a civil lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York against 25 unnamed defendants tied to a massive phishing operation that has reportedly victimized more than 1 million people across 120 countries.
The target: a phishing-as-a-service platform called Lighthouse, also linked to operations known as Darcula and the Smishing Triad. Google estimates the overall harm from this operation exceeds $1 billion.
What Lighthouse actually does
Instead of running scams directly, the platform provides templates, infrastructure, and tools that let even novice criminals launch sophisticated SMS phishing campaigns, commonly called “smishing.”
The scam texts impersonated trusted organizations like the US Postal Service and the IRS. Victims who clicked through were redirected to convincing but fraudulent websites designed to harvest payment information and personal data.
